RE: Where can I find the XSLT DTD?

Subject: RE: Where can I find the XSLT DTD?
From: Kay Michael <Michael.Kay@xxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 09:51:13 -0000
> > Validators usually give better error messages than XSLT processors,
> > which is helpful for catching gross structural errors.

I'd be interested in an example of where this is true (especially with XSLT
Processor = Saxon). The XSLT processor is obliged to report all errors in
the stylesheet; it isn't obliged to report them helpfully, but it's my
belief that the XSLT processor understands what's wrong better than a
validating parser would. And at least that way you get consistent error
messages for "structural" errors (things that a DTD might detect) and
"semantic" errors (things that it couldn't).

The only thing a validating parser could conceivably add would be some
validation of the literal result elements, but even that would be very
limited, e.g. you can't check attribute values because they can be AVTs.

I'd have thought a more interesting requirement was validity in the result
tree. At the moment you can specify a DOCTYPE for the result document but
there's no implication that the XSLT processor should check the validity (or
even the well-formedness) of the output. Any thoughts on this?

Mike Kay


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