On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 12:08:46 +0200, Ian Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
This is missing the original point of this thread. It's not the
namespace nodes that I'm interested in, but the specific prefixes that
are used in the resulting XML serialization and their binding to the
CURIEs/qnames in attribute values.
What you seem to be saying is that if you hack a document up textually it
may mean something different if you don't keep the namespace prefixes the
same. True, but this is nothing new. If you hack an xml:base attribute
out, all the hrefs will have a different meaning. If you take an xml:lang
out, all the text will have a different meaning.
In fact that is what the XML canonicalization rec is all about, trying to
keep the context intact. It says quite explicitly:
"4.4 No Namespace Prefix Rewriting
[...]
However, there now exist a number of contexts in which namespace prefixes
can impart information value in an XML document. For example, an XPath
expression in an attribute value or element content can reference a
namespace prefix. Thus, rewriting the namespace prefixes would damage such
a document by changing its meaning (and it cannot be logically equivalent
if its meaning has changed).
[...]
Moreover, it is possible to prove that namespace rewriting is harmful,
rather than simply ineffective.
[...]"
http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n#NoNSPrefixRewriting
Steven Pemberton
