I get an error on

• <?xml version="1.0" standalone="no" encoding="UTF-8"?>

while

• <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>

is accepted. What is the specific rule regarding ordering. Thank you.

From http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-prolog-dtd

XMLDecl ::= '<?xml' VersionInfo EncodingDecl? SDDecl? S? '?>'

Therefore, the correct order is version, encoding, standalone declaration.

Not, that while these may look like XML attributes neither these, or those found in processing instructions are actually attributes, they mealy follow the label/value pair convention of attributes.

/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

You could have done what I just did in 10 seconds: go to the XML recommendation, search for "XML declaration", follow the link, and reach

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#NT-XMLDecl

which tells you:

[23] XMLDecl ::= '<?xml' VersionInfo EncodingDecl? SDDecl? S? '?>'

that is, the encoding declaration must come before the standalone declaration.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
Author, XSLT Programmer's Reference and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference

ooh, beat ya :)

/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

 And rob you of an opportunity to be condescending? Never!

Thank you.