[xsl] Namespace wildcards

Subject: [xsl] Namespace wildcards
From: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 15:00:20 -0500
In light of all the issues with namespaces that already exist, I feel compelled to ask whether the namespace wildcards introduced in XPath 2.0 <http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath20/#node-tests> are a good idea. This enables expressions like this:


<xsl:template match="*:set"> This matches MathML set elements, SVG set elements, set elements from other namespaces, and set elements from no namespace at all. </xsl:template>

In other words the local name matters, but the URI doesn't. Do we really want to allow this? Do we actually need this? I'm really afraid this is going to further confuse developers about namespaces and encourage bad practices.
--


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