[whatwg] Re: Doctype FPI

[Ian Hickson]

On Wed, 14 Jul 2004, Henri Sivonen wrote:
> > > 
> > > Since you seem to envision not actually having any DTD to speak of, 
> > > where do you see named entity references fitting into the picture?
> > 
> > If the author wants entities, then the (otherwise mostly empty) DTD 
> > would be the right place for them.
> 
> It is the right place only in a private system. That is, if the author 
> uses a tool that parses the DTD and reserializes the document either as 
> DTDless XML or as text/html soup for delivery over the public network.

Yes; I meant a hypothetical WHATWG DTD.


> I think user agents should not be required to use XML processors that 
> parse the DTD. Also, authors should not be given the impression that 
> entities (other than the 5 predefined ones) are suitable for use on the 
> Web when the content is parsed as XML. (I consider the inclusion of the 
> HTML 4 entities in the XHTML DTDs as a serious spec bug.)

Note that UAs have had to implement SGML catalogs that detect the XHTML 
(and MathML) FPIs and automatically use cut-down DTDs that only contain 
entities to handle those exact cases.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'