Re: [xml-dev] Static resolution of names is preferred over dynamic resol

[Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>]

> On 14 Apr 2016, at 15:00, Ghislain Fourny <g@28.io> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm not sure I would use the terminology "compiling XML" as XML is not a programming language, but otherwise yes, I would assume that many processors optimize the internal representation of QNames in memory when processing XML. For example, you can use internal and fixed prefixes as namespace proxies, or you can have a namespace pool and use pointer comparison to compare namespaces, or have QName pools and compare QNames by pointer directly.
> 
> Kind regards,
> Ghislain


But none of this solves the problem that the information passed by the XML parser to the application needs to include information about the bindings of namespace prefixes to URIs, because there might be prefixes that the parser can't resolve because it doesn't know about them. So the application has to worry about prefixes, which inevitably complicates XML processing languages and APIs, and creates the opportunity (as in XBRL, thanks Ghislain) for applications to invent their own semantics for how prefixes are handled, which might differ from the semantics assumed by standard tools.

Michael Kay
Saxonica