Resolving XML QNames

How does one expand a XML QName in the presence of default namespaces?

The XML Namespace specification defines the concept of a qualified name as a name consisting of a local part and namespace URI.

A qualified name, or QName, is specified in terms of a prefix and a local part (e.g. <foo:bar xmlns:foo=’urn:foo’>), where the prefix (foo) is resolved to a namespace URI (‘urn:foo‘).
This process of resolving the prefix results in what is commonly known as the expanded name.

The rules for resolving a prefix are mostly uniform in the context of different XML processors, with the exception of how default namespaces (e.g. xmlns=’urn:foo’) are dealt with.

Specifically:

 

• XML elements: if the QName does not have a prefix, then the in-scope default namespace must be used.

XML	Resolved namespace for element ‘foo’
<foo xmlns=’urn:foo’/>	‘urn:foo’

 

• XML attributes: if the QName does not have a prefix, then the namespace URI is NULL, that is, the default namespace is not used.

XML	Resolved namespace for attribute ‘a’
<foo xmlns=’urn:foo’a=’attr1’/>	NULL
<foo xmlns:ns1=’urn:foo’ ns1:a=‘attr1’ />	‘urn:foo’

 

• Attribute value of W3C Schema primitive type QName: if the QName does not have a prefix, then the in-scope default namespace must be used.

XML	Resolved namespace of attribute value of attribute ‘a’
<foo xmlns=’urn:foo’ a=’myname‘/> where <xsd:attribute name=’a’ type=’xsd:QName’/>	‘urn:foo’

 

• XSLT (1.0) variable or parameter: if the QName does not have a prefix, then the namespace URI is NULL, that is, the default namespace is not used.

XSLT	Resolved namespace for variable
<xsl:variable name=’varA’ xmlns=’urn:foo’ />	NULL
<xsl:variable name=’ns1:varA’ xmlns=’urn:foo’ xmlns:ns1=’urn:bar’ />	‘urn:bar’

 

• XPath 1.0 node tests: if the QName does not have a prefix, then the namespace URI is NULL, that is, the default namespace is not used.

XPATH	Resolved namespace for Node Test ‘b’
<a xmlns:ns1=’urn:foo’ xmlns=’urn:foo’>   <b/> </a> /ns1:a/b	NULL
/ns1:a/ns1:b	‘urn:foo’

 

• XPath 2.0 node (name) tests: if the QName does not have a prefix, then the in-scope default namespace must be used.

XPATH	Resolved namespace for Node Test ‘b’
<a xmlns:ns1=’urn:foo’ xmlns=’urn:foo’>   <b/> </a> /ns1:a/b	‘urn:foo’

 

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