[XML-SIG] SAX 2.0, again

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* THOMAS PASSIN
| 
| I think we should make it as easy as possible to use either
| namespace-style names or ordinary names, so both can be used in the
| same way as far as possible.  

Agreed. This has to be the overall goal.

| The application shouldn't have to figure out the structure before it
| can even extract the value.  So I don't think the xml name should be
| a tuple if it has a declared namespace but a string if there is no
| namespace.

This is a valid point, unless we can work around the problem somehow.

| With this in mind, how about
| 
| ((prefix,localpart),uri)

For performance and convenience it would be better to do this as

  (prefix, localpart, uri)

but I agree that this is better than

  (uri, localpart, rawname)

since you rarely want the rawname anyway, and when you want it you can
get it from the prefix + localpart.
 
The only problem I have with this is that it means that names with
different prefixes do not compare as equal. This is why I would prefer
to have the prefix reported somewhere else. (Any good ideas for where?)

| I don't recall how it shook out on XML-DEV, but there were a number
| of posts that said it was important to keep the actual prefix value,
| and this approach would do that.

I think it was needed for the DOM, and it's also part of the lexical
information that one sometimes needs, so there are definitely reasons
to keep it. The question is where.
 
| BTW, "uri" doesn't actually need to be a uri, any unique string will
| do.
 
Perhaps, but it doesn't really matter to us. :-)

--Lars M.