XOM API for Processing XML with Java

[peter murray-rust <pm286 AT cam.ac.uk>]

I have a related problem - please excuse me if the answer is obvious.

I wish to be able to change the namespace prefixes on elements if 
there is a conflict. As I understand it the namespace prefix on 
elements and attributes has no intrinsic meaning other than when the 
nodes are serialized. The NS_URI contains all the non-lexical 
information about the node().

However when creating an element with a non-default namespace the 
name must have a hardcoded prefix at construction-time. For example 
from the tutorial

     String namespace = "http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML";;
      Element root = new Element("mathml:math", namespace);

If I wish to serialize the output of this the elements will have the 
mathml prefix and I cannot see a simple way of avoiding this. The 
problem might come when I have a factory which creates elements with 
a given prefix and a second library that uses the same prefix for a 
different namespace. Even though I suspect that the output 
differentiates between them it will extremely confusing to have the 
same prefix for different namespaces.

I am not clear why the element prefixes have to be hardcoded other 
than for serialization. The only workaround I can think of is to copy 
the nodes and change the prefixes.

P.

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Peter Murray-Rust
Unilever Centre for Molecular Sciences Informatics
University of Cambridge,
Lensfield Road,  Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069