---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 21:10:45 +0100 (GMT Daylight Time)
From: Lou Burnard <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
To: Charles Muller <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Validation Error in Emacs (psgml)


OK, let's be more precise here. Firstly emacs and psgml don't do
this kind of validation: your problem arises because nsgmls is
complaining.

There are two possible explanations:
(a) you have a very ancient version of nsgmls which doesn't grok (I think
that's the word) this kind of entity reference
(b) you are not including the right sgml declaration for nsgmls to process
the file as xml

If you're using the tei-emacs installation as currently packaged and have
installed it as we deliver it, then the only way I can see of getting the
symptoms you describe is to give the system an SGML file to validate, or
an XML file which invokes an SGML dtd (the latter is easily done by, for
example, not specifying %TEI.XML as "INCLUDE"). Hence my original
misunderstanding.

If however you're not using tei-emacs exactly as packaged, for example by
supplying your own SGML declaration or not supplying one at all, then
obviously the above hypothesis is entirely invalid, and I apologise for
even formulating it!

nsgmls comes with an SGML declaration that fools it into validating XML
files. You will know if you are using this because itq generates a warning
message to the effect that you supplied an SGML declaration. Why does it
do this? Because XML files are not supposed to require an SGML
declaration: they are not permitted to vary the reference concrete syntax.
But nsgmls requires one because it is an SGML parser, not an XML parser.
So if you supply one, it conscientiously warns you. This is one of the
many reasons why some people on this planet seriously believe James Clark
to be up there with Eric Clapton in the pantheon of contemporary
near-deities.

lou


On Tue, 20 Aug 2002, Charles Muller wrote:

> Lou wrote:
>
> lb> Tim is quite right. The XML entities are intended for use with XML
> lb> files, not SGML. Hence their name.
>
> I know that. I'm doing XML (using TEIXLITE.DTD), not SGML (please see my
> original message). I thought that Tim understood that as well, and was
> agreeing with me that Emacs/psgml is mistakenly validating XML files as if
> they were SGML, at least concerning these external entity references.
>
> lb> You say the files are OK with other parsers: which other parsers?
> lb> and how OK?
>
> I mean that the other parsers (other XML editors such as epcEdit, oXygen,
> XMLSpy, Excelon) take the document in question to be valid, and do not
> generate these entity reference errors. I was guessing that there might be a
> setting in the psgml.elc file, but haven't been able to turn anything up as
> yet. I do have a line in my .emacs file to tell psgml to read my files as
> XML rather than SGML, but that does not seem to be working for this
> particular instance.
>