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Re: [xsl] xmlns in the root element prevents transformation

2020-07-24 01:32:32
+1 for my first question to support requests being to check the usage of 
namespaces, as this is where 80%+ of my users' problems are. +1 for the 
3-minute fix being the most common outcome, too!

I do think that namespaces are where XML derives an enormous amount of its 
power from, though, and wouldn’t lose them. I also don’t have any good 
suggestions for how to improve the situation, other than to repeat the obvious 
advice that making the simple things simple is critical, and that this often 
involves having sensible defaults.

Cheers,

Damian

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On 24 Jul 2020, at 12:48 pm, Debbie Lapeyre 
dalapeyre(_at_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com 
<xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com> wrote:

When you try to explain this to beginners. they
do not believe you. 'But who would do that?' they cry.

If I had a nickle for every time I as a consultant have
been called to solve a horrible mess, checked the namespaces,
fixed them, went home in 3 minutes ... And many of you on
this list have done this far more often than I.

Namespaces are a real problem.

But thank you for working on those error messages Michael.

--Debbie

On Jul 23, 2020, at 6:17 PM, Michael Kay mike(_at_)saxonica(_dot_)com 
<xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com> wrote:

Failing to appreciate the implications of a namespace declaratoin in the 
source document is probably the most common source of XSLT questions on 
StackOverflow - if you search there for "XSLT default namespace" you will 
find at least 600 questions from people who have fallen into this trap. It's 
particularly invidious beccause (a) the symptoms of the failure are usually 
wrong results rather than any kind of error, and there's nothing in the 
wrong results that hints at a namespace problem, and (b) many people try to 
pick up XSLT from very elementary tutorials that only handle the simplest of 
constructs, and leave out any discussion of namespaces as if they are 
somehow an advanced feature that you don't need to worry about until later.

It's also invidious because although the problem was recognised very early 
on, it's proved impossible to fix without creating backwards compability 
problems. The xpath-default-namespace attribute in XSLT 2.0 helps, but only 
if you know what the problem is and know that you need to use it. In Saxon 
I've been experimenting with another solution, which is for bare unqualified 
names in the stylesheet to match elements in any namespace or none - but for 
conformance reasons, that option can't be the default, so beginners still 
fall straight into the trap. I've also tried heuristics that attempt to 
detect when users are falling into the trap (specifically, when a namespace 
is used in the source document and isn't declared in the stylesheet) but I 
fear that users who don't even know that these peculiar xmlns things are 
called namespaces find the message incomprehensible and ignore it.

If the source document has a namespace declaration then it changes the names 
of the elements, and if your stylesheet is trying to match elements by name 
then they won't match unless you get the namespace right. So understanding 
this is absolutely fundamental.

Michael Kay
Saxonica

On 23 Jul 2020, at 21:55, Manuel Souto Pico 
terminolator(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com 
<xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com> wrote:

I think I can answer myself.

The stylesheet needs to have the version hardcoded in the root element, at 
least from what I can tell, like 
xpath-default-namespace="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:1.2", and it 
must be the same version as the input XML files.

Cheers, Manuel

Manuel Souto Pico <terminolator(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> escreveu no dia 
quinta, 23/07/2020 à(s) 21:11:
Dear all, 

This transformation gives me an empty output file: 
https://xsltfiddle.liberty-development.net/gVhEaiQ

However, if I remove the xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:1.2 bit 
from the XLIFF root node, then it works. 

Could somebody help me understand why that happens? 

Thanks in advance.

Cheers, Manuel
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Deborah A Lapeyre              mailto:dalapeyre(_at_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
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