Re: [xml-dev] The "standalone" in an XML declaration is meaninglessif DT

On Wed, 9 Dec 2020 at 14:04, Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org> wrote:

Hi Folks,

Consider this XML declaration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>

The "standalone" part is relevant only when using DTDs, right? That is, the "standalone" in an XML declaration is meaningless if DTDs aren't being used, right?

Suppose DTDs aren't being used and the XML declaration has standalone="no" ... what does that mean? is it an error?

No it is not an error, just has no meaning. The XML spec https://www.w3.org/TR/xml/#sec-rmd says

> If there are no external markup declarations, the standalone document declaration has no meaning.

Note however that catalogs can imply external declarations that are not explicitly present in the XML file so you can't tell just by looking at the file whether that applies. (Not that it normally matters either way, there are rather few scenarios when standalone makes any difference)

David

/Roger

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