>  From: Tim Bray [mailto:tbray@[...].com]
>  Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 11:12 PM
>  To: xml-dev@[...].org
>  Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Question about the sytax of namespace
>  declarations
> 
> 
>  At 12:41 PM 27/02/02 -0800, Wayne Steele wrote:
>  >Question:
>  >
>  >Is the below document "conforming" with regard to the XML-Namespaces rec?
>  >
>  ><root xmlns:a="" />
> 
>  It's not, but this is probably a bug BTW.  You can "undeclare" the
>  default namespace like so:
> 
>  <root xmlns="foo" >
>   <child xmlns="" />
>   </root>
> 
>  so why shouldn't you be able to undeclare other prefixes, e.g.
> 
>  <root xmlns:foo="bar" >
>    <child xmlns:foo="" />
>    </root>
> 
>  James Clark was the first to notice this, but that was after
>  namespaces had been out for a year.
> 
>  BTW, *nobody* thinks it's a good idea to allow a namespace name
>  to be an empty string - if the abovec were allowed, it would
>  strictly be in the interests of undeclaring prefixes; which
>  would break no existing namespace semantics.  Who knows,
>  it might even get done someday. -Tim

Wait-a-minute.

Why would you want to undeclare a namespace prefix???

In the case of

	<a:root xmlns:a="" /> 

we would have a qualified name "a:root", with a prefix of "a".

http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xml-names-19990114/#ns-qualnames says:

"The Prefix provides the namespace prefix part of the qualified name, and
must be associated with a namespace URI reference in a namespace
declaration. [Definition:] The LocalPart provides the local part of the
qualified name. "

I don't see what this would be good for.

If you want to write an element which has no namespace and are unsure about
the context in which it appears, write

	<root xmlns="" /> 






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