[whatwg] IE6 vs XHR vs XMLNS

[Henri Sivonen]

On Feb 14, 2008, at 19:45, Julian Reschke wrote:

> Seen in <http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20080214#l-339>:
>
>> # # [16:49] <hsivonen> on a second though, that won't work for XHR
>> # # [16:49] <hsivonen> so, no
>> # # [16:50] <hsivonen> since IE XHR is DOM Level 1, stuff like the  
>> Flickr API have to be XML 1.0 without XMLNS
>> # # [16:50] <hsivonen> yay for XMLNS
>> # # [16:51] <annevk> i don't understand
>> # # [16:51] <annevk> xhr requires a conforming xmlns parser
>> # # [16:52] <hsivonen> IE6 doesn't expose a namespace-aware API for  
>> XHR-loaded docs, IIRC
>> # # [16:53] <hsivonen> and Safari as shipped with Panther  
>> missealized namespaced XML
>> # # [16:53] <hsivonen> so RESTful XML APIs that want to be XHR- 
>> compatible have to live in the namespaceless XML 1.0 (< 5th ed.)  
>> world
>
> That is incorrect.
>
> IE6 XHR is part of MSXML, which deals just fine with XMLNS, except  
> for the absence of some DOM L2 methods.

Perhaps. I can't verify now. However, I have developed a cross-browser  
XHR-intensive app when IE6 was the current IE and what came with  
Panther was the current Safari. The problems with namespaces were very  
real.

The practical effect of the lack of Level 2 methods in IE6 and the  
brokenness* of the XHR XML serializer in older WebKit is that using  
namespaces with cross-browser XHR is at least hard and using Level 1  
DOM APIs with namespaceless XML 1.0 (< 5th ed.) is the practical  
single-codepath cross-browser solution.

* http://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5262
-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen at iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/