ewitness - Ben Fowler wrote: > > [ snip ] > > There are a couple of points. > > 1. What I was hoping to do is have entities but no external > DTD. Is this impossible?
No. > Or alternatively possible only at > the penalty of putting a reasonable DTD in the internal > subset? If the DTD in the internal subset completely specifies the grammar (including general entities), the document can be validated, assuming it is well-formed. A document without a complete DTD (as in a document using the DOCTYPE construct to declare entities) can only be well-formed, never valid. ///Magnus > I don't see why my orignal request cannot be satisfied? Is > it something that has been true of SGML all along and is > therefore grandfathered into XML. If so, there is a distinction > that could be made in that since a DTD is required for SGML > nobody would have noticed that this was part and parcel of > declaring ENTITYs. > > What I would like would be to independently switch on > or off validation and general entities? > > 2. I have never seen a parser that does not switch into > validating mode when there is an external subset. Reading > an external DTD is a sine qua non for accessing the > ENTITYs in it. > > At least this adds colour to my assertion that it is > sometimes easier to use a numeric form of entity rather > than a general entity. > > Note that this does not apply to HTML because in HTML > a lot of entities are made available without there > being a DTD at all. > > Ben.
