[Expat-discuss] clarification

[rolf@pointsman.de]

On 30 Nov, Carlos Pereira wrote:
> According to Simon St. Laurent, XML Elements of Style,
> these declarations should both be valid:
> 
> <?xml?>
> <?xml encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
> 
> but at least to me Expat seems to require the 
> version="1.0" attribute, as for example, this 
> is accepted:
> 
> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> 
> Is Simon wrong? Did the XML specification change?
> Could someone comment on this?

Hmmm. See the Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Second Edition),
production 22-24:

[22]    prolog    ::=    XMLDecl? Misc* (doctypedecl Misc*)? 
[23]    XMLDecl    ::=    '<?xml' VersionInfo EncodingDecl? SDDecl? S?'?>'
[24]    VersionInfo    ::=    S 'version' Eq ("'" VersionNum "'" | '"' VersionNum '"')

If you have an XMLDecl, then there must be a VersionInfo. I think
there isn't much doubt.

rolf