Re: [xml-dev] IE9 and application/xhtml+xml

[Jesper Tverskov <jesper.tverskov@gmail.com>]

Thanks Jirka

I stated that all major browsers except IE9, show an error message if
there is a well-formedness error. But IE9 switches to HTML parsing
instead of showing an error message.

Jirka Kosek answered: "No, IE9 stops processing and renders content
before the first error."

That is correct, but there still is a mimetype problem. I used the
following test file having a well-formedness error and served it with
mimetype "application/xhtml+xml".

http://www.xmlplease.com/parsing/test/

It is true that IE9 renders the file until the error. I didn't notice
it the first time around because the error is almost at the end of the
file.

The switching of mimetypes, I based on the following:

I pressed F12 in IE9 to validate the file, and the validator reported
"text/html". I have now redone the test without the well-formedness
error. The validator still reports "text/html" when opened in IE9
first. If the file is validated directly, the validator reports valid
HTML5 served with mimetype "application/xhtml+xml".

We know now that IE9 switches mimetype from "application/xhtml+xml" to
"text/html" when you _validate_ a file served with
"application/xhtml+xml" in IE9 pressing F12.

The XML spec, 5.1, says: "Validating and non-validating processors
alike MUST report violations of this specification's well-formedness
constraints ..."

IE9 is in my judgement wrong, just rendering the webpage until the
error, not reporting the error.

Thanks for helping me sorting this out.

Cheers
Jesper Tverskov
http://www.xmlplease.com