Special Edition Using XML, Second Edition

Specifying Namespaces

Specifying Namespaces is very simple—so simple, in fact, that many people assume something else must be involved, so they make it needlessly complicated. The really difficult issues surrounding Namespaces involve when to use them, which we will discuss later in this chapter.

Namespaces are specified using the xmlns attribute to declare the Namespace with an element. The attribute takes the general form

<element xmlns:prefix="Namespace URI"> 

in which the element is the element for which we are declaring the Namespace, the prefix is the prefix we will use with our element names, and the Namespace URI is the identifier of the Namespace itself. The prefix is actually optional—if it is left out, the Namespace declaration is ...