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On May 6, 2005, at 5:58 PM, Richard Tobin wrote: >> The point here is that a *syntax* defines nothing more than the >> grammar >> of a data format... > > And XML is not *just* a syntax in that sense. Some aspects of its > semantics are made explicit in the XML spec, some are omitted, and > some are left to the implementation. Right... and this whole discussion started because of the lack of clarity there. My assertion is that we'd be better off taking all processing-specific notions out of the grammar, and specifying them elsewhere... because ultimately, I can choose to ignore or implement behaviour as I wish. > People for whom whitespace between attributes is significant *in > the application* are not using an XML application. I think that's open to debate... I understand perfectly well where you're coming from, it's just that in reality, few people make that distinction. In a database that includes XQuery support etc. but which also support the notion of "checkin/checkout", people *will* get upset if things get munged much. It doesn't matter how many times you tell them that this is correct behaviour.
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