Re: [xsl] Namespaces on attributes

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike and David,

As always, thanks for your promptness and sound advice.

On 2/29/2012 12:15 PM, Michael Kay wrote:
> > It was recently shown to me that (using a recent Saxon) this template
> >
> > <xsl:template match="@schemaLocation"
> > xpath-default-namespace="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"/>
> >
> > does not match the @xsi:schemaLocation here:
> >
> > <ead xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink";
> > xmlns="urn:isbn:1-931666-22-9"
> > xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance";
> > xsi:schemaLocation="urn:isbn:1-931666-22-9
> > http://www.loc.gov/ead/ead.xsd";>
> >
> > I am at a loss to explain this.
> It took me a while too.
>
> xpath-default-namespace sets the "default namespace for element and type
> names". It doesn't affect attribute names. As in XML, unprefixed
> attribute names are in no namespace, regardless of any default namespace.

Okay.

But methinks this means, as respects attributes with namespace-qualified 
names, there is a hole, inasmuch as there is no way to address them 
without declaring prefixes for their names. (Effectively a residuum of 
the XSLT 1.0 situation.)

I understand that unprefixed attribute names are not in the default 
namespace (and understand why it would be bad if they were, and how this 
disjunction stems from the way the design of namespaces straddles syntax 
and model), so I guess it makes sense they can't be bound to a namespace 
at all ...

... but it does make for a gotcha. One more to file away (and I am not 
surprised it has to do with namespaces).

Thanks again,
Wendell

> Michael Kay
> Saxonica

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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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