Just a side question to standards in general and namespaces in particular:
Is there any rule stating that a certain namespace URI (i.e.
http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml has to use a specific prefix i.e. xhtml)?
Nope. That's the point of prefixes; they're _only_ shorthand for the
namespace URIs.
Are namespace URIs sort of "free form" anyway or where can I find the
rules
how to for example construct my own namespace.
Any URI can be used as a namespace. The only reason they're URIs at all is
that we all know how to manage URIs to avoid conflicts (ie, select a URI
that's in a domain you actually own).
There should be a way to avoid conflicting prefixes, shouldn't it?
Nope. The basic assumption behind the namespace spec is that you will get
rid of the prefixes as soon as possible, and operate in terms of the
namespace URIs they represent. Since prefixes are scoped, conflicts don't
exist... EXCEPT in something like XPath which may cross scopes. (Which is
why I don't think XPath should have used prefixes without providing a
built-in way to define them, but that's an old and somewhat idealistic
debate.)
______________________________________
Joe Kesselman, IBM Next-Generation Web Technologies: XML, XSL and more.
"may'ron DaroQbe'chugh vaj bIrIQbej" ("Put down the squeezebox and nobody
gets hurt.")
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