Parameter Entity Reference Considered Harmful

Trevor Jenkins (tfj@apusapus.demon.co.uk)
Wed, 3 Sep 1997 15:39:29 +0000 (GMT)


In making one more pass through the official grammar for XML, before
I despatch my alternative version to the 5 people who've requested
copies, I spotted a real dumb error in the doctype declaration.

The existing definition says:

doctypedecl ::= '<!DOCTYPE' S Name (S
ExternalID)? S? ('['
%markupdecl* ']' S?)? '>'

Now the notational devie of prefixing a production name with %, and
I quote, "specifies that <i>in the external DTD subset</i>..."
(emphasis copied from the definition). But notice that this
%markupdecl is NOT in the external DTD subset at all! Also the
definition of the % device introduces another set of ambiguities
from white space.

Me thinks that the existing official grammar is in desparate need of
a re-write.

Regards, Trevor.

--

"Real Men don't Read Instruction Manuals" Tim Allen, Home Improvement