I'd like to check something with the XML crowd...
My understanding is that the namespace identifier is the URI, not the
label.
For example, in
<?XML:namespace href="http://purl.oclc.org/metadata/" as="DC"?>
<DC:Title>Supplying the Mining World</DC:Title>
the namespace identifier is "http://purl.oclc.org/metadata/" not the
string "DC".
This is simply to make the metadata instance clearer. You could have...
<http://purl.oclc.org/metadata/:Title>
Supplying the Mining World
<\http://purl.oclc.org/metadata/:Title>
which is sematically equivalent, but much uglier :-)
Within a metadata instance, the label ("DC") is entirely arbitrary, as
long as all labels used are unique. You could have...
<?XML:namespace href="http://purl.oclc.org/metadata/"
as="Stu'sDream"?>
<Stu'sDream:Title>Supplying the Mining World</Stu'sDream:Title>
It is clearer if we all use 'DC' to indicate DublinCore attribute. But
that's only a convention and there is no problem if we need to change
it to 'DCore' in a particular instance to prevent a name clash with
another metadata scheme.
andrew waugh
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