Learning XML, 2nd Edition
by Erik T. Ray

The unconfirmed error reports are from readers.  They have not yet been 
approved or disproved by the author or editor and represent solely the
opinion of the reader.

Here's a key to the markup:
        [page-number]: serious technical mistake
        {page-number}: minor technical mistake
        <page-number>: important language/formatting problem
        (page-number): language change or minor formatting problem
        ?page-number?: reader question or request for clarification

This page was updated June 16, 2008.


UNCONFIRMED  errors and comments from readers: 

{3}  last paragraph;
The <graphic ...> tag in the example at the top of the page is not empty, but the
text in this paragraph says that it is.


{22}  HTML script at bottom of the page;
Figure 1.3 on p. 23 contains an image in the browser display.  However, there is no
image link in the corresponding HTML script on the bottom of p. 22.


(52)  First line in Figure 2-2;
Misplaced question mark (should be before the .>.):
<?xml version="1.0"? encoding="utf8">


{52}  Figure 2-2;
The first line of fig. 2-2 reads:
<?xml version="1.0"? encoding="utf8">

There are two problems with this. The question mark needs to be at the end of the
declaration, and the encoding type is invalid. It should read:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>


(55)  Figure 2-6;
The text in the paragraph above the figure indicates (4) is the backup system
identifier.  But, in the figure, (4) is labelled "public identifier"


[56]  1st paragraph;
On this page it states that the "XML parser first reads declaration from the external
subset, then reads from the internal subset".

On page 125, 2nd paragraph states "Since the internal subset is read before the
external subset,...".

Which is correct?


{97} two thirds of the way down;
There is a reference to an unresolved entity villip. Trying to display example 3.6 gives this message
XML Parsing Error: undefined entity
Location: file:///I:/HTML/LearnXML/examples/ch03/ex03_06.xml
Line Number 145, Column 13: &vellip;
------------^

Since the example doesn't use any external references, this should have been declared internally


[115]  4.2.2, example DTD;
ALL is not valid in an element declaration.  The example should be ANY.
From the XML Recommendation:

3.2 Element Type Declarations
[snip]
elementdecl ::= '<!ELEMENT' S Name S contentspec S? '>'
contentspec ::= 'EMPTY' | 'ANY' | Mixed | children


[117]  second literal text;
The #PCDATA entries in the DTD's should be surrounded with parentheses and have an
asterisk after them.  Or at least all of the other O'Reilly books which I have say so
and so does the Python based parser xvcmd.py.

The problem is throughout the DTD discussion in Chapter 4.


{134}  Last row of the table;
xs:ID, xs:IDREF, xs:IDREF
should read:
xs:ID, xs:IDREF, xs:IDREFS


[137]  5th block of code;
In Chapter 4 Quality Control with Schemas

the element definition
<xs:element name="postcode"/>
is closed six lines down with
</xs:element>

the opening has the terminator "/" in it.
Think it should be
<xs:element name="postcode">


{158}  First line of example;
There should be no > at the end of the line.

<element name="census-record>
should be:
<element name="census-record


{158}  The address element;
The address element does not contain a "country" element, which causes validation of
the example CensusML documents to fail.


{158}  Fourth line from the bottom of the page;
The elements of the gender element should be male and female, not male and gender.

<value>gender</value>
should be:
<value>female</value>


{161} 2nd and 3rd section of code;
The Lines with <report test="title">Yup, found a title.</assert>
Change </assert> to </report>


[175]  Figure 5-6;
"property1:value2"
should be:
"property2:value2"


{192}  Paragraph above Figure 5-13;

"The CSS specification recommends that CSS processors display each size 1.2 times
larger than the previous one (so that xx-large would be 3.6 times the size of xx-
small)..."

Thus one would expect xx-large to be 1.2 raised to the power of 6 the size of xx-
small. 1.2 raised to the power of 6 is approximately 3 and not 3.6. So I would expect
the text in parentheses to be:

(so that xx-large would be 3 times the size of xx-small)


(204) Example 6-2;
Check the Errata page you provide for the subject book; I believe you have an error in the following 
correction:


{206} Example 6-3,
Just after the first <blockquote>, the following should be inserted:

Find out which episode.

This is again because the XML of 6-1 uses the element <comment>,
whose text would be output by a default XSL rule, rather than a
true XML comment.


In my copy of the subject book dated January 2001: First Edition,
there is no use of <comment> in Example 6-1; however, on page 204,
where Example 6-2 starts (just below the end of Ex. 6-1), there
is a <comment> about half-way down the page. Perhaps the writer of the Errata page only saw the 
reference to "Example 6-1" at the topof the page in the book?


[212]  5th entry of table 6-4;
The path

id('q1')/parent::*

does not match the first quotation element: it matches the document (i.e. root)
element.

id('q1')

by itself matches the first quotation element.


[212]Table 6-4;
There's another reader comment that claims the match listed for id('q1')/parent::* is incorrect, but I think it's correct, based on testing a similar situation here: http://www.zvon.org:9001/saxon/cgi-bin/XLab/XML/extras.html.

However, I think the match listed for id('q2')/.. is incorrect. Again based on the site above, it seems the match should be the second quotation element, not the document element.


[213]  4th entry from top of table 6-5;
The path

/*[@id="2"]/preceding-sibling::*/source

matches nothing, because the start of the path i.e.

/*

matches the document element i.e. the <quotelist> element. By definition of an XML
document, there is only one document element. As it does not have an id attribute
with value 2, the path step:

/*[@id="2"]

matches nothing. Hence the path as a whole matches nothing.


{213}  last entry of table 6-5;

//quotation[@type='silly' or @type='wise']

should be:

//quotation[@style='silly' or @style='wise']


(229) second paragraph from bottom;
xslt stylesheet for the instruction guide / line 41 not well-formed

is:
<xsl:value-of select="//part[@label=$label]"</xsl:value-of>

should be:
<xsl:value-of select="//part[@label=$label]" />


(237)  Last sentence of paragraph at top of page;
For example, we could rewrite the second ...
should read:
For example, we could rewrite the first ...


[253] see below;

The phrase
<xsl:when test=" ... > ...">
should read
<xsl:when test=" ... &gt; ...">

The phrase
<xsl:if test=" ... > ...">
should read
<xsl:if test=" ... &gt; ...">


{298-301} Comments in code;
In the comments in the code block running from pages 298-301, the words "odd" and "even" need to be 
swapped, so that they match the flow-name attributes.

On page 298, the comment: <!--START OF CHAPTER ON ODD PAGE-->

should be

<!--START OF CHAPTER ON EVEN PAGE-->

And on page 299, the comment: <!--START OF CHAPTER ON EVEN PAGE-->

should be

<!--START OF CHAPTER ON ODD PAGE-->

On page 300, the comment: <!--REST OF CHAPTER ON ODD PAGE-->

should be

<!--REST OF CHAPTER ON EVEN PAGE-->

And on page 300 at bottom, the comment: <!--REST OF CHAPTER ON EVEN PAGE-->

should be

<!--REST OF CHAPTER ON ODD PAGE-->


[329] see below;

The <xsl:template> is not well-formed.
The phrase
</if>
should read:
</xsl:when>

The phrase
</xsl:choose>
is missing.


(332)  Example 10-1;
The first ingredient listed has Gloppy with TM symbol applied. The text refers to an
entity. Somehow in printing the entity got processed instead of being in the text
example.


{334} Second line of code in second code block;
In code block at bottom of page, should it be "Float price;" instead of "String price;"?


[342-5]  Last para - A Java Example onwards;
The program as written, and the example output shown, wrongly labels element content
as CDATA, which it isn't, necesssarily.  In fact in the example given, none of it is
CDATA.

This mislabelling takes place in the "// handle a characters event" section of the
code.

Less importantly, it also considers whitespace at line ends CDATA and gives empty
elements CDATA of length three, etc. This might well be confusing, even if it were
just labelled as content.


{350} Methods headings under NodeList and NamedNodeMap;
Under the Methods headings under NodeList and NamedNodeMap, the text should read "Here are the methods 
for the NodeList class:" and "Here are the methods for the NamedNodeMap" class, respectively.


{375} Status paragraph under XHTML;
Missing URL at end of Status paragraph ("...and working drafts are available at"


(386) XHTML entry;
In XHTML term in parentheses, it should be "Extensible" not "Exntensible"