Effective XML: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your XML

Item 18. Include All Information in the Instance Document

An XML document is not the same thing as an XML file. XML provides a bewildering array of options for building documents and infosets out of multiple pieces. Among them are the following:

• External parsed entity references

• Internal parsed entity references

• XInclude

• Default attribute values from the DTD

• Default attribute values from the schema

These can be useful shortcuts for authoring, but they are death traps for interoperable documents. Many XML processors do not read the external DTD subset and cannot resolve any entity references defined therein. They also cannot apply default attribute values. Few current XML parsers can read a schema and apply default attribute values found there. Almost ...