Uche Ogbuji wrote:
> Bob Foster wrote:
> > > The XML 1.0 well-formedness definition specifically states that
> > > attributes are unordered, but says nothing about elements.
> > > This means that technically speaking, a conforming XML parser
> > > might decide to report the child elements of memo in Listing 1
> > > in any order.
> >
> > Good grief!
>
> It's weird, but it's true. I think Tim Bray has admitted this was an
> omission, but since no sane XML person would tolerate such a libertine
> parser, there's not much consequence to the omission. (This is
> standardization by threat of techie ostracism, perhaps?)
Not so weird. As far as I can tell, other than well-formedness
and validity errors the XML Rec places no constraints at all on
what data a processor must report. That's what the Infoset Rec
is for.
(SGML is the same way -- the Standard only specifies the concrete
syntax of conforming SGML documents; the data returned to the
application -- the abstract syntax -- wasn't specified anywhere
until the ESIS attachment was added.)
--Joe English
