Re: [xml] Forcing the xml:base attribute for included files in the same directory

[Daniel Veillard <veillard redhat com>]

On Wed, Jul 02, 2008 at 08:39:02AM -0400, Catherine Proulx wrote:
> Hi,

  Hi,

> I have a question regarding the omission of the xml:base attribute when
> including a file located in the same directory as the includer. I've
> read, in an old newsgroup post, that this was done on purpose
> when the xml:base support was implemented
> (http://sources.redhat.com/ml/docbook/2003-03/msg00101.html)

  yes on purpose to give the people using DocBook/TEI/... a way to
use XInclude without getting invalidity errors until their DTDs got
updated.

> Is there a workaround for this? In other words, is there
> a way I could force the parser to add the xml:base attribute for all
> inclusions, regardless of their directory?

  There is no way directly code is in xinclude.c around line 1681.

> I'm hoping to implement an error-reporting and coverage tool for
> xml-embedded code, and using the xml:base attribute seems like the least
> invasive way to locate a code snippet. (I'm using libxml 2.6.22 by the
> way, but could consider an upgrade if essential. However, nothing in the
> release notes indicated that this behavior had changed)  Of course, we
> can always
> move the files around so that includer files will always be in a
> directory of their own. But I'd prefer a more elegant solution if possible.

  I'm not sure the xml:base is really the right thing to use. For example
when a tree gets processed with XInclude, libxml2 inserts XML_XINCLUDE_START
and XML_XINCLUDE_END nodes around every included fragment in the resulting
tree (unless asked to not do that with XML_PARSE_NOXINCNODE parser option).
Your code could just walk the resulting tree and locate and analyze them.
That sounds way cleaner and safer in general.

Daniel

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