Dear Log,
So, if you're dealing with XML namespaces, like so:
...then you can just make one of the namespaces the default so that
you can omit the prefix for it, like so:
or:
... where presumably you will have the default namespace be whichever
one is most common in your document.
Of course, this is well-understood among all advanced superbeings of pure XML
energy.
But what is less appreciated is that, for the nondefault
namespaces, it may be a good idea to use a short and/or easy to type
namespace prefix.
In other words, consider that this:
is the same as this, but just more concise:
The only difference is that the latter uses "Q" as the namespace
prefix instead of "xsl". For the parse, it's the namespace name
("http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform") that matters, not the prefix
("xsl"/"Q").
I use "Q" because it's right next to ":" on my keyboard. It could just as easily be "_" or "x" or "é" or
"φ" or
"乒" or whatever "letter" you like. (Although clearly this could be abused, just like with short variable names in programs.)
Here ends your
soul-shattering revelation for the day.
Hmmm....
Dom2 on 2005-10-19T16:11:37
Whilst there's nothing technically wrong with doing that, it will certainly cause people who read it to do a double take. As an example, imagine if you're reading some mod_perl code and the author has decided to use $QUERY instead of the usual $r. It's legitimate to do so, but certainly not idiomatic.
Of course, if you're the only one who's going to see it, do as you will!
-Dom
