DOCBOOK: Re: Entity Reference Resolution on an HTTP Server

[Norman Walsh <ndw at nwalsh dot com>]

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/ "Steven T. Hatton" <hattons@speakeasy.net> (by way of Steven T. Hatton <hattons@speakeasy.net>) was heard to say:
| Whose job is it to resolve entities referenced within an XML document served
| out from an http server.

The XML parser.

| For example, I have a docbook document with a
| &amp;hellip; in it.  (Who knows how that is going to look in Outlook.) When I
| attempt to open the document with Mozilla, he chokes on the entity reference.

Either the document doesn't include a doctype declaration or the
parser is not reading the external subset. Non-validating parsers are
allowed to skip the external subset.

| If the browser is expected to resolve this reference, then how?  Can I do
| that with CSS?

Yes, the browser is expected to. No, you can't do it with CSS.

| My doctype definition looks thus:
| <!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
| "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd";>

In that case, it seems pretty likely that the parser in Mozilla
doesn't read the external subset (sigh).

| Now, in a perfect world Mozilla would just go out and read that from
| www.oasis-open.org.  That don't seem to be happ'nin'.  What's plan 'B'?  I'm
| running apache.

Off the top of my head, run the document through an XSLT identity
transformation before sending it out, that'll expand the entity
references to numeric character refs which should work even without
reading the external subset.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

- -- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | Reality is what refuses to go away
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | when I stop believing in
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee | it.--Philip K. Dick
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