[tei-council] namespaces and modifications

[Daniel O'Donnell]

On Sat, 2007-04-07 at 18:18 -0400, Syd Bauman wrote:
> > Hrmmm. If I've added a brand new element, my:foo, I've done so in
> > my own namespace, of course. But if I add it to class att.typed, it
> > joins that club and gets the TEI element tei:typed, right?
> 
> This turns out not to be the case. Being added to class att.typed
> gets you the TEI attribute type=, *not* the attribute tei:type=.
> Attributes, unless explicitly qualified, are in no namespace.
> 
> "The namespace name for an unprefixed attribute name always has no
> value." -- http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/#defaulting
> 
> 
> But Lou has pointed out some of the major headaches I was referring
> to when this came up. Things like the following.
> 
> * What if user adds new attribute to existing TEI element? Does she
>   have to put it in her namespace, 

Yes.

> or can it be in no namespace like
>   the other attributes?
> 
> * What if a user deletes attributes from a standard TEI element --
>   does that element now have to get moved from the TEI namespace to
>   her namespace? 

Yes.

> Especially if it was a required attribute, normal
>   TEI software may not be able to process that element anymore.
> 
> * If she deletes an attribute from an attribute class, do all members
>   of that class now have to change namespace?
> 
> * What if a user adds an existing TEI element to an existing TEI
>   attribute class, such that it now has attributes it doesn't have in
>   vanilla? 

I think yes--own namespace

> 
> * What about the reverse: she removes an element from an existing
>   attribute class?

I think yes, --own namespace

> 
> And we haven't even started to think about changing model classes and
> content models yet!
> 
> Issues like this are why I think this general idea that putting new
> elements in a different namespace will help in processing TEI
> documents is tenuous at best.
> 
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-- 
Daniel Paul O'Donnell, PhD
Director, Digital Medievalist Project http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/
Associate Professor and Chair, Department of English
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4
Canada
Vox: +1 403 329-2378
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