Does a DTD change the default namespace or something?

[Ross Presser]

I'm feeling very stupid about this ...

pdf2html (http://pdf2html.sourceforge.net) is an app that reads a PDF
and can generate HTML or XML; in my case I'm using the XML. The PDF I'm
working with is a concatenation of many reports; my objective is to
find the first page of each report, which I've discovered can be found
in this particular instance by looking for an xml element with a
particular attribute "left" equal to 277.

So I want to consume this XML using XPath, to find all "page" elements
that contain "text" elements that have an attribute of 277. The XPath
expression is therefore:

"/pdf2xml/page/text[@left=277]"

Works great ... IF I change the XML output by the tool to remove the
DTD reference. If I leave the DTD reference in there, it stops finding
any nodes. Why? Does the presence of the DTD reference automatically
assign a namespace? Do I need a XmlNamespaceManager? What do I use it
with?

Altering the input XML is not the preferred option here. I also have a
version that just uses the Reader to walk the tree ... I want to get
away from that because I eventually want to be able to specify an XPath
query as input.

My code:
Sub test()
Dim inputfile As String = "test.xml"
Dim r As New XmlTextReader(inputfile)
Dim xd as New Xml.XPathDocument(r)
Dim nav As XPath.XPathNavigator = xd.CreateNavigator()
Dim expr As XPath.XPathExpression =
nav.Compile("/pdf2xml/page/text[@left=277]")
Dim ni As XPath.XPathNodeIterator = nav.Select(expr)
Do While ni.MoveNext()
Dim node As XPath.XPathNavigator = ni.Current
Dim ani As XPath.XPathNodeIterator = _
node.SelectAncestors(XPath.XPathNodeType.Element, False)
ani.MoveNext()
Dim pagenum As Integer = ani.Current.GetAttribute("number",
"")
Debug.WriteLine(pagenum)
Loop
End Sub

My XML is below, showing two pages; the desired result is to get the
first page. It's actual output from pdf2html, slightly stripped and
censored.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE pdf2xml SYSTEM "pdf2xml.dtd">

<pdf2xml>
<page number="1" position="absolute" top="0" left="0" height="1188"
width="918">
<text top="805" left="277" width="0" height="18" font="0"><i><b>Person
Name</b></i></text>
<text top="805" left="298" width="0" height="18" font="0"><i><b>123
Main St</b></i></text>
<text top="805" left="319" width="0" height="18"
font="0"><i><b>Hometown, IL 60000</b></i></text>
</page>
<page number="2" position="absolute" top="0" left="0" height="1188"
width="918">
<text top="245" left="144" width="136" height="18"
font="0"><i><b>Person Name</b></i></text>
<text top="266" left="144" width="124" height="18" font="0"><i><b>123
Main St</b></i></text>
<text top="287" left="144" width="168" height="18"
font="0"><i><b>Hometown, IL 60000</b></i></text>
<text top="470" left="143" width="319" height="19"
font="1"><b>STATEMENT OF MANAGEMENT FEES</b></text>
</page>
</pdf2xml>

[Bjoern Hoehrmann]

* Ross Presser wrote in microsoft.public.dotnet.xml:

>Works great ... IF I change the XML output by the tool to remove the
DTD reference. If I leave the DTD reference in there, it stops finding
any nodes. Why? Does the presence of the DTD reference automatically
assign a namespace? Do I need a XmlNamespaceManager? What do I use it
with?

Yes, unfortunately some DTDs declare a default namespace and cause such
confusion. If the generating tool does not itself declare the namespace
in the document, I would consider that a bug in the tool. For using the
XmlNamespaceManager, see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/d271ytdx.aspx
--
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bj****@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Weinh. Str. 22 · Telefon: [phone] · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
68309 Mannheim · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/

[Ross Presser]

Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote:

* Ross Presser wrote in microsoft.public.dotnet.xml:

Works great ... IF I change the XML output by the tool to remove the
DTD reference. If I leave the DTD reference in there, it stops finding
any nodes. Why? Does the presence of the DTD reference automatically
assign a namespace? Do I need a XmlNamespaceManager? What do I use it
with?

Yes, unfortunately some DTDs declare a default namespace and cause such
confusion. If the generating tool does not itself declare the namespace
in the document, I would consider that a bug in the tool. For using the
XmlNamespaceManager, see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/d271ytdx.aspx

The thing is, I can't figure out what namespace is being applied.
This was the DTD line in the XML file:

<!DOCTYPE pdf2xml SYSTEM "pdf2xml.dtd">

and this is the contents of pdf2xml.dtd:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!ELEMENT pdf2xml (page+)>
<!ELEMENT page (fontspec*, text*)>
<!ATTLIST page
number CDATA #REQUIRED
position CDATA #REQUIRED
top CDATA #REQUIRED
left CDATA #REQUIRED
height CDATA #REQUIRED
width CDATA #REQUIRED

>

<!ELEMENT fontspec EMPTY>
<!ATTLIST fontspec
id CDATA #REQUIRED
size CDATA #REQUIRED
family CDATA #REQUIRED
color CDATA #REQUIRED

>

<!ELEMENT text (#PCDATA | b | i)*>
<!ATTLIST text
top CDATA #REQUIRED
left CDATA #REQUIRED
width CDATA #REQUIRED
height CDATA #REQUIRED
font CDATA #REQUIRED

>

<!ELEMENT b (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT i (#PCDATA)>

Some experimentation with msxslt, by the way, did not seem to show a
need to use a namespace.

[Martin Honnen]

Ross Presser wrote:

and this is the contents of pdf2xml.dtd:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!ELEMENT pdf2xml (page+)>
<!ELEMENT page (fontspec*, text*)>
<!ATTLIST page
number CDATA #REQUIRED
position CDATA #REQUIRED
top CDATA #REQUIRED
left CDATA #REQUIRED
height CDATA #REQUIRED
width CDATA #REQUIRED
<!ELEMENT fontspec EMPTY>
<!ATTLIST fontspec
id CDATA #REQUIRED
size CDATA #REQUIRED
family CDATA #REQUIRED
color CDATA #REQUIRED
<!ELEMENT text (#PCDATA | b | i)*>
<!ATTLIST text
top CDATA #REQUIRED
left CDATA #REQUIRED
width CDATA #REQUIRED
height CDATA #REQUIRED
font CDATA #REQUIRED
<!ELEMENT b (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT i (#PCDATA)>

Some experimentation with msxslt, by the way, did not seem to show a
need to use a namespace.

There is no xmlns attribute defined in that DTD.

As for your original problem with .NET code, which version of the .NET
framework are you using?
--

Martin Honnen --- MVP XML
http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

[Ross Presser]

Martin Honnen wrote:

There is no xmlns attribute defined in that DTD.

As for your original problem with .NET code, which version of the .NET
framework are you using?

Version 1.1