Re: external dtd subset content

Paul Prescod (papresco@technologist.com)
Tue, 16 Dec 1997 11:08:51 -0500

Peter Murray-Rust wrote:
> Good point! I have never really understood why it's necessary to have
> consistency between the root element and the doctypedeclName.

The docTypeDeclName exists specifically to state the root element type.

> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> <!DOCTYPE HTML SYSTEM "html20.dtd">
> <P>This is a para</P>
>
> is invalid.

Think about what the code above means in *HTML*:

This is a para

Now I suspect you understand why the docTypeDeclName exists and in XML
must always be the same as the type of the explicitly tagged root
element. Since XML has no minimization, it is redundant of course.
WebSGML allows you to use the keyword #IMPLIED (but XML does not) to
remove that redundancy.

Paul Prescod