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At 07:27 AM 3/3/01 -0500, David Megginson wrote: >This works only if you control both ends of the transaction. >Normally, if you're *providing* information in XML, you won't control >the receiver's environment -- the receiver will be using an >off-the-shelf XML parser that automatically resolves the DOCTYPE using >the system identifier, and when their system stops working, they'll >come screaming to you (and at you). Sure. But I was focusing on strategies for the recipient who just wants to make certain that a document conforms to a given DTD. I should have been clearer about this, since it wasn't clear from previous context. I don't actually consider sender-receiver coordination of XML processing a solvable problem in any generic sense - too many options, too late to fix. >I've received a few private e-mails from companies in the news >industry who learned this the hard way (usually by [expletive deleted] off an >important customer). I'm afraid that's a pretty common story. >Again, this doesn't help the provider, who is the one who has to >decide whether to include the DOCTYPE declaration in the outgoing >XML. If I'm publishing XML that may be used by hundreds or thousands >of customers, many of whom have existing XML installations, can I >really trust that every one of them (or even most) will get something >like this right? Yep. And the "receiver is always right", IMHO. Simon St.Laurent - Associate Editor, O'Reilly and Associates XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed. XHTML: Migrating Toward XML http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books
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