Attributes and Namespaces.

I will apologize in advance for starting a topic that most likely has been
discussed before, but I could not seem to find the concise answers I sought.


The RDF specification says that, in an RDF document: 

  <rdf:Description about="http://www.w3.org">
      <s:Publisher>World Wide Web Consortium</s:Publisher>
      <s:Title>W3C Home Page</s:Title>
      <s:Date>1998-10-03T02:27</s:Date>
    </rdf:Description>

can be equivalently expressed using abbreviated syntax as:

  <rdf:Description about="http://www.w3.org">
         s:Publisher="World Wide Web Consortium"
         s:Title="W3C Home Page"
         s:Date="1998-10-03T02:27"/>

This loosely allows attributes to be treated as elements. Now the rub... The
XML Namespace specification states that "default namespaces do not apply
directly to attributes". What does that mean? Does it mean that this:       

  <rdf:Description about="http://www.w3.org">
      <Publisher>World Wide Web Consortium</Publisher>
      <Title>W3C Home Page</Title>
      <Date>1998-10-03T02:27</Date>
    </rdf:Description>

is NOT equivalent to this:  

  <rdf:Description about="http://www.w3.org">
         Publisher="World Wide Web Consortium"
         Title="W3C Home Page"
         Date="1998-10-03T02:27"/>

If not, why not?

Thanks - Lewis

___________________________________________
Lewis L Hart 
GRC International                 lhart@grci.com
1900 Gallows Rd.                  Voice (703)506-5938
Vienna, Va 22182                    Fax (703)556-4261

Received on Tuesday, 27 March 2001 12:30:51 UTC