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The specification does not include information about how the selectors values should be set with regard to namespaces. Applying XPath expressions with or without namespace will have different results depending on how the document is written. What should be the standard process to resolve this?
I think a solution can be in the way it is done by schematron, see http://www.schematron.com/elements.html . Schematron has the same problem as ITS: XPath expressions are used within a schematron document, but how should one deal with default namespaces? The schematron solution is: have a separate <ns> element which is used for namespace definitions for the XPath expressions, like in the @context and @test attribute below: <schema xmlns="http://purl.oclc.org/dsdl/schematron"> <title>A Schematron Mini-Schema for Schematron</title> <ns prefix="sch" uri="http://purl.oclc.org/dsdl/schematron"> <pattern> <rule context="sch:schema"> <assert test="sch:pattern" ... No prefix means no namespace. We have still to define how to use the <ns> element if we have in situ ITS markup. But that would be a minor issue, I think.
The working group decided - to use no selector attributes in situ, which resolves this issue for in situ ITS markup (See http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-i18n-its/2006JanMar/0098.html) - to use zero or more <ns prefix=".." uri=".."> elements inside the <documentRules> to specify a namespace binding for XPath expressions, which resolves the issue for dislocated ITS. See http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-i18n-its/2006JanMar/0100.html