From: "James Britt (rubydev)" <james@...>
Date: 2001-11-14T11:06:34+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:25130] Re: XML support in the standard lib; what exactly?

>
> I tried to find that, but alas I found nothing more explicit than this:
>  "Note that the order of attribute specifications in a start-tag
>   or empty-element tag is not significant."
>
>  http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#sec-starttags
>

That seems pretty explicit, since attributes may only appear in the start tag or an empty-element tag.

Further, if you manipulate an attribute nodelist and re-read the list, there is no promise that they will be returned in the same
order (i.e., adding a new attribute does not mean "adding to the end" or "adding to the beginning." It's basically up to the
implementation.)

It ties in with the restriction that attributes name be unique on any given element; without a defined index, there'd be no way to
tell them apart.



James