Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2003 12:03:43 -0700 From: underway@comcast.net (Gary W. Swearingen) To: doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Use of w3.org servers. Message-ID: <dpwudpjnn4.udp@mail.comcast.net> In-Reply-To: <20030807080929.GC358@straylight.oblivion.bg> (Peter Pentchev's message of "Thu, 7 Aug 2003 11:09:29 %2B0300") References: <kefzkelqql.zke@mail.comcast.net> <20030806163100.GP76053@submonkey.net> <20030806163641.GX358@straylight.oblivion.bg> <ge3cgel1he.cge@mail.comcast.net> <20030807080929.GC358@straylight.oblivion.bg>
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> [snip] is there a reason why we should change the system identifier? Yes, but I now see that there are better reasons why we shouldn't. > And BTW, the system identifier is also *not* used by browsers when [snip] Based on my recent research, it *may be* used by browsers at any time and *should be* used when they can't find DTD files by the other method described below. But I'm guessing that it happens seldom enough that we needn't worry about forcing w3.org to serve our files for us. W3C won't mind and it keeps things simpler for us. This is based on some info in "XML in a Nutshell" page 30 and in the XML 1.0 spec at "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml" (as I interpreted them, of course). Browsers will look at our DOCTYPE with our PUBLIC "external identifier" which consists of both a "public identifier" and a "system identifier". According to the XML spec the browser MAY use the public ID to find the DTD and if it can't, it should use the system ID. (Some XHTML spec might turn MAY into MUST, but I doubt it.) I'll guess that most browsers DO use the public ID to avoid using the system ID most of the time. It seems (tho I'm not sure) that most browsers use some kind of "catalog data file" which tells them where to find DTD files that correspond to a public ID, generally in local files. One hopes that the browser's version matches the w3.org version. (If there's a reason for DTD changes, the system ID should point to files that have the changes too, I suppose.) P.S. The XHTML spec only recommends use of w3.org URIs for validating parsers. (I.e, they say nothing (in the spec) about normal browsers.) I'm guessing that most validating parsers go straight for the system identifier, hoping it's at "w3.org". But this is moot for this thread.
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