Re: well-formedness error

[Walter Underwood <wunder@xxxxxxxxxx>]

--On Thursday, June 17, 2004 9:13 PM +0200 Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> * Walter Underwood wrote:
>> I find it confusing to define "well-formed XML" with respect to 
>> external encoding information, so I'll propose alternate terms.
>> 
>> well-formed XML: [...]
>> 
>> HTTP-correct: [...]
> 
> That would be rather confusing, you cannot take the HTTP message
> body in isolation, you need to consider the protocol level encoding
> information in order to properly decode the message body which is
> necessary to determine whether the message body is a XML document.

Right. So well-formed XML might not be HTTP-correct XML when sent
over HTTP. It depends on HTTP and XML issues together.

> Though you are right, encoding issues are unrelated to well-formed-
> ness, you would rather say that well-formedness cannot be determined
> if there is anything wrong at the octet level or the associated meta
> data, but I doubt that that would be much clearer.

Right. XML in an HTTP message must follow the HTTP rules in order
to be a correct HTTP message.

I think that people have been "well-formed" to mean "well-formed
in the context of an externally specified encoding". I want us to
use "well-formed" to mean exactly what it means in the XML 1.0
spec. Appendix F talks about external encodings, but it does not 
make them part of the well-formed definition. It also says that 
RFCs are more authoritative than the XML 1.0 spec on this subject.
To me, that means we need a different term when we  talk about XML
with externally specified encoding.

Tim, Makato, fell free to correct me if I've misread the spec.

wunder
--
Walter Underwood
Principal Architect, Verity