Re: Why Doesn't IE5 use the DTD to Validate?

Subject: Re: Why Doesn't IE5 use the DTD to Validate?
From: Rick Geimer <rick.geimer@xxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 10:44:21 -0800
I too, would like a "Validate XML documents" option in the browser
settings panel. Without it, people unfamiliar with XML and DTDs will open
up their newly created document in their browser and incorrectly assume
"it displays, so it must be valid." Providing such an option that could
easily be checked or unchecked would resolve this whole issue fairly
quickly. I also like the processing instruction idea, so that someone on
the server side has some control over validation on the client. The
question then becomes which one has priority, the PI or the browser
setting?

Rick Geimer
National Semiconductor
rick.geimer@xxxxxxx

John Dreystadt wrote:

> I want to second the spirit of Paul's suggestion but not the letter. I
> think that sometimes the person running the browser will know if they
> want validation (Reader) and sometimes the Author will know. I think
> the browsers should expose a setting by which the Reader can force
> full validation. This would only show up in the Advanced panel but
> would be useful during development of new pages, testing and so on.
>
> I also believe that a PI that forces validation is useful for
> e-commerce situations.
>
> Last but not least, I think that the default should be no validation.
> I realize that some people are going to have a problem with that
> position but hear me out. On the World Wide Web, many more pages are
> rendered just for viewing or for some minor scripting than are used
> for true e-commerce or for other situations where validation is
> important. So why should the parser spend time doing validation
> checks? A parser is much faster checking only the well-formed rules
> than full validation.
>
> So I would switch Paul's suggestion to use the positive case:
> <?xml:checkvalidity="yes"?>
> or something similar.
>
> By defaulting to no validation, we keep the parsing and rendering of
> content as lightweight as possible much of the time. Allowing either
> the Reader (using the browser) or the Author (using the PI) to request
> validation makes it easy to achieve validation when needed. And I am
> only suggesting that the default for browsers be no validation. I
> think that every developer creating a new XML application is going to
> have to consider the implications of validation and make a case by
> case decision about the importance of validation.
>
> John Dreystadt
>
> >
> > I propose a processing instruction that says that a
> > document has a DTD but
> > is not meant to be valid.
> >
> > <?xml:not-valid?>
> >
> > Then validating applications would treat it as if it were just
> > well-formed.
> >
> > --
> >  Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for
> > only himself
> >  http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco
> >
>
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