[Biojava-l] xmlns attribute in blast-like XML document

[Simon Brocklehurst]

Gerald Loeffler wrote:

> hi!
>
> The Blast-like SAX-based parser emits events that correspond to this XML header:
>
> -----
> <?xml version="1.0"?>
>
> <biojava:BlastLikeDataSetCollection xmlns="" biojava="http://www.biojava.org">
> -----
>
> It is illegal for the xmlns-string to be empty! It seems that "biojava" should be the content of the xmlns-string...

Who says it's illegal?

My understanding, is that setting xmlns to an empty string specifies that no default namespace is used for a specific
element.

I'm aware that some tools like Xeena from IBM say this is illegal.  What I don't know for sure is if it's me that's
misunderstood things or IBM.

However, there is DEFINITELY a bug in the output!  I meant it to say:

xlmns = "" xmlns:biojava = "http://www.biojava.org"

These aspects of specs have a habit of chaning beneath you.  So if I'm wrong about the empty string bit, please do let
me know!

I'll fix for this in, when I'm adding the DTD if you don't fix it first!  And if the empty string is wrong for xmlns, we
can easily fix that too.

Simon
--
Simon M. Brocklehurst, Ph.D.
Head of Bioinformatics & Advanced IS
Cambridge Antibody Technology
The Science Park, Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, UK
http://www.CambridgeAntibody.com/
mailto:simon.brocklehurst@CambridgeAntibody.com