Re: [xsl] Namespace attribute problem with Saxon

["Mark Wilson" <drmark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Eric,
Thank you for your very kind, and most complete, explaination. because of 
it, I now believe I have a much clearer grasp of the default namespace.
Mark

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eric BrC)chemier" <xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Mark Wilson" <drmark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 8:24 AM
Subject: Re: [xsl] Namespace attribute problem with Saxon


> On 1/16/06, Mark Wilson <drmark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > When I export my xml source document from MicrosoftWord, the schema I 
> > used
> > to create the document is referenced in the outermost node (...)
> > If I try to apply an XSLT document to this exported document, Saxon
> > produces nothing, but if I remove the xmlns attribute referencing the 
> > schema
> > from  the List element, Saxon produces the expected output from the 
> > source
> > document.
>
> Hi Mark,
>
> Your problem is not specific to Saxon, and it is the normal behavior to 
> expect.
>
> The "xmlns attribute" is not actually an attribute. It is called a
> pseudo-attribute and it has a huge effect on your document, which
> still looks like the same for you, but is now totally different for
> any (schema-aware) xml processor.
>
> In technical terms, it declares the default namespace associated with
> all elements without a prefix (the part before ':' in xml element
> names, like pre in 'pre:name'). It is like applying a different color
> to the corresponding elements in your document. You still see the
> document in black and white (for now), but Saxon sees it in color, and
> does not match the black elements if you write something like
> <xsl:template match="List">. On the other hand, if you rewrite your
> document (binding the lib prefix with your namespace)
> <lib:List xmlns:lib="http://knihtisk.org/LibraryList.xsd";>
> ....
> </lib:List>
> it looks like different for you, but it is exactly the same as the
> document with the default namespace declaration for an xml processor.
>
> This is the key to understanding the solution, which is declaring a
> prefix binding in the stylesheet, to indicate the namespace or "color"
> of your elements:
> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" 
> xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";
> xmlns:lib="http://knihtisk.org/LibraryList.xsd";>
> (...)
> <xsl:template match="lib:List">
>
> This difficulty to understand how to match elements in the default
> namespace (no prefix in input document, but you have to use one in the
> stylesheet) has been adressed by the XSLT 2.0 specification. In an
> XSLT 2.0 stylesheet, you can now write:
> <xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" 
> xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";
> xpath-default-namespace="http://knihtisk.org/LibraryList.xsd";>
> (...)
> <xsl:template match="List">
> which still requires adding a namespace declaration, but removes the
> need to add a prefix in every xpath expression to match your
> document's elements.
>
> You can get more details on these matters in:
>
> W3C XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.0
> Candidate Recommendation 3 November 2005
> B' 5.2 Unprefixed QNames in Expressions and Patterns
> [http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt20/#unprefixed-qnames]
>
> W3C Namespaces in XML
> [http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/]
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Eric