XML namespace: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:45, 18 June 2008

Revision as of 06:36, 26 July 2008

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'''XML namespaces''' are used for providing uniquely named elements and attributes in an [[XML]] instance. They are defined by a [[W3C]] recommendation called Namespaces in XML. An XML instance may contain element or attribute names from more than one [[XML Vocabulary]]vocabulary. If each vocabulary is given a [[Namespace (computer science)|namespace]] then the ambiguity between identically named elements or attributes can be resolved.

A simple example would be to consider an XML instance that contained references to a customer and an ordered product. Both the customer element and the product element could have a child element "ID_number". References to the element ID_number would therefore be ambiguous unless the two identically named but semantically different elements were brought under namespaces that would differentiate them.