DuCharme, Robert writes:
 > XML parser is required to pass along an element's attribute values, and has
 > various places to look for them (the start tag, the element type's attribute
 > list declaration), but isn't required to report where it found them, so the
 > app using the parser has no way of knowing whether an attribute value is
 > being supplied because it was specified as the default value. 

understood. so I need a parser which does NOT read the DTD to that
depth, and that solves my problem, surely? 

 > values substituted for the references": you're looking for a way to prevent
 > the parser from doing something that it's required to do by the XML spec, so

a non-validating parser is surely not required to read the DTD itself?
just the subset, I thought?

 > Or, of course, a post-processing step that copies the document without
 > copying certain attributes if they have a certain value, but I assume you're

that would indeed be unutterably tedious.... :-} 

sebastian


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