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Re: namespace issue
- From: Jeni Tennison <jeni at jenitennison dot com>
- To: xsl-list at lists dot mulberrytech dot com
- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 16:28:46 +0000
- Subject: Re: [xsl] namespace issue
- Organization: Jeni Tennison Consulting Ltd
- References: <9B66BBD37D5DD411B8CE00508B69700FE7A8CE@pborolocal.rnib.org.uk>
- Reply-to: xsl-list at lists dot mulberrytech dot com
Hi Dave,
>> If by empty ns you meant empty namespace name rather than empty
>> prefix then that is special in that it can only be assigned to the
>> default namespace (ie the empty prefix) you can't assign a non
>> empty prefix to the non-namespace.
>
> I've now read that eight times and I'm off to let me head heal.
>
> I think it means
> <el xmlns=""> == the default namespace, is 'special'
>
> I think the double negative means I can't do <pre:el xmlns="">
Not quite.
The namespace name is the namespace URI used to identify the
namespace, our favourite example being
"http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform". An empty namespace name ("")
means 'no namespace' or 'null namespace'.
The namespace prefix is the character(s) that you associate with the
namespace URI within a particular document. We usually use 'xsl' as
the namespace prefix for the XSLT namespace, for example. An empty
namespace prefix is what you use with the default namespace - element
names without a prefix (with an empty namespace prefix) are in the
default namespace.
What David said that you can't assign a non-empty namespace prefix to
an empty namespace name. That means you can't do:
<el xmlns:pre="">...</el>
You can, however, assign an empty namespace prefix to a non-empty
namespace name (that's what you do when you create a default
namespace):
<el xmlns="my-namespace">...</el> or
You can also assign an empty namespace prefix to an empty namespace
name, and, of course, a non-empty namespace prefix to an non-empty
namespace name:
<pre:el xmlns="" xmlns:pref="my-namespace">...</pre:el>
I hope that helps,
Jeni
---
Jeni Tennison
http://www.jenitennison.com/
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