I don't see a problem with this specific backward compatibility issue. 1. Non-namespace names like "test:echo" is, IMHO, not a common practice.
2. If there were build files like this in the field, it would be trivial to fix them. 3. The XML standards warn about using colons in names for non-namespace purposes. A '96 XML spec doesn't allow colons in "Nmtokens" (WD-xml-961114, section 1.5). An XML specs from '97 (PR-xml-971208) includes (section 2.3) text such as: "Note: The colon character within XML names is reserved for experimentation with name spaces. ... In practice, this means that authors should not use the colon in XML names except as part of name-space experiments" This warning grows stronger as the years pass. Using a colon for non-namespace purposes is simply bad XML. I'd like to know what "namespace support" means to Ant before its added. However, I don't think that the backward compatibility issue is a valid reason to not add namespace support, whatever that may be. Personally, I think bug 4369 (http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=4369) should be re-opened and fixed. That would be a nice start for namespace support. Because Ant currently has nothing to do with name spaces, this bug causes extra work when build.xml files are generated from stylesheets which do use namespaces. On Wednesday, July 10, 2002, at 02:07 , Erik Hatcher wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Conor MacNeill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> Adding namespace support is not a backward compatible change, though >> <project name="test" default="test"> >> <target name="test"> >> <taskdef name="test:echo" >> classname="org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Echo"/> >> <test:echo message="hello"/> >> </target> >> </project> > > I don't understand how this is not backwards compatible? As long as > newer > versions of Ant can run older build files, that is backwards > compatibility. > But older versions of Ant cannot be expected to run newer build files. > Or > am I missing something here? > Let's say in Ant 1.6 we want to add Nicola Ken's <import> task but we wish to use namespaces to avoid collisions - i.e. <ant:import>. So we turn on namespaces. The above build file will then fail with an XML parser error (undeclared namespace at test:echo). So we can't run an old build file with the new version of Ant. We could have an option to turn on namespace support but it means this user cannot import this build file. Conor -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free http://sbc.yahoo.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
