Wendy,<br><br>The prefix is relatively unimportant when serialising XML. Technically the namespace for the Dublin Core elements is "<a href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" target="_blank">http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/</a>", while the namespace for Dublin Core Terms is "<a href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" target="_blank">http://purl.org/dc/terms/</a>".When declaring their use in an XML document, you give a local prefix, like: xmlns:dc="<a href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" target="_blank">http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/</a>", but this only has scope to that document.<div><br></div><div>When handling XML, systems are free to convert a prefix to the full namespace or replace them, or merge them, hence the occasional appearance of ns1, ns2, ns3, etc..., once a document has been processed.<br><br>Of note, (I believe) it is impossible to set two namespaces to have the same prefix, but the same namespace can have multiple prefixes, so this is impossible:</div><div><br></div><div><xml xmlns:dc="<a href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" target="_blank">http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/</a>" <span style="line-height:1.5">xmlns:dc="<a href="http://purl.org/dc/" target="_blank">http://purl.org/dc/</a></span>terms/<span style="line-height:1.5">" /></span><br></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5"><br></span></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5">But this is is legal (albeit confusing):</span></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5"><br></span></div><div><div><xml xmlns:dcterms="<a href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" target="_blank">http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/</a>" <span style="line-height:1.5">xmlns:dc="<a href="http://purl.org/dc/" target="_blank">http://purl.org/dc/</a></span>elements/1.1/<span style="line-height:1.5">" /></span><br></div></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5"><br></span></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5">Also note, in the above example after processing an XML processor may decide to replace/harmonise the prefixes so they have the same prefix, given that they both belong to the same namespace.</span></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5"><br></span></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5">Ultimately, prefixes should be human readable, so I'd recommend dc/dcterms to differentiate. But there is no requirement for this, so you can use dc/dcterms, or stick with defaults like ns1/ns2, or get wild:<br><br></span><table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" style="border:1px solid rgb(153,153,153);color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:medium;line-height:normal;background-color:rgb(245,245,245)"><tbody><tr><td colspan="4" style="padding-left:0.33em;padding-right:0.33em;padding-top:0.33em"><span style="font-family:'Courier New',monospace;font-size:14px;color:rgb(0,0,255)"><michiganRocks:</span><span style="font-family:'Courier New',monospace;font-size:14px"><font color="#990000">Fragment<br></font></span><span><font color="#990000"><font face="Courier New, monospace"><span style="font-size:14px"> xsi:schemaLocation="ddi:instance:3_2 <a href="http://www.ddialliance.org/Specification/DDI-Lifecycle/3.2/XMLSchema/instance.xsd" target="_blank">http://www.ddialliance.org/Specification/DDI-Lifecycle/3.2/XMLSchema/instance.xsd</a>"</span><br><span style="font-size:14px"> xmlns:</span></font></font><span style="color:rgb(0,0,255);font-family:'Courier New',monospace;font-size:14px">michiganRocks</span><font color="#990000" face="Courier New, monospace"><span style="font-size:14px">="ddi:instance:3_2"</span></font><br><font color="#990000" face="Courier New, monospace"><span style="font-size:14px"> xmlns:</span></font><span style="color:rgb(0,0,255);font-family:'Courier New',monospace;font-size:14px">goBlue</span><span style="font-size:14px;color:rgb(153,0,0);font-family:'Courier New',monospace">="ddi:reusable:3_2"</span><font color="#990000" face="Courier New, monospace"><span style="font-size:14px"><br></span></font><font color="#990000" face="Courier New, monospace"><span style="font-size:14px"> </span></font><font color="#0000ff" style="font-family:'Courier New',monospace;font-size:14px">><br><goBlue:</font><span style="color:rgb(153,0,0);font-family:'Courier New',monospace;font-size:14px">Note</span><font color="#0000ff" style="font-family:'Courier New',monospace;font-size:14px">>Please don't do this in practice!</font></span><font color="#0000ff" style="font-family:'Courier New',monospace;font-size:14px"></goBlue:</font><span style="color:rgb(153,0,0);font-family:'Courier New',monospace;font-size:14px">Note</span><font color="#0000ff" style="font-family:'Courier New',monospace;font-size:14px">><br></font><span style="font-family:'Courier New',monospace;font-size:14px;color:rgb(0,0,255)"></michiganRocks:</span><span style="font-family:'Courier New',monospace;font-size:14px"><font color="#990000">Fragment</font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,255);font-family:'Courier New',monospace;font-size:14px">></span><font color="#0000ff" style="font-family:'Courier New',monospace;font-size:14px"><br></font></td></tr><tr><td width="1%" style="padding-left:0.33em"></td></tr></tbody></table><br></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5">Cheers,</span><br></div><div>Sam.</div><div><br></div><div>PS. I realised far too late the MN is Minnesota, not Michigan, but I don't know any UMN chants. Plus the list is hosted by UMich. So Go Blue I guess.</div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed Jan 14 2015 at 10:19:21 Wendy Thomas <<a href="mailto:wlt@umn.edu" target="_blank">wlt@umn.edu</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Hi everyone!<div>Trying to get some user feedback. When we expanded the use of native Dublin Core from the base set to qualified Dublin Core (DDI-C 2.5 and DDI-L 3.2) we did it in a way that used the namespace dc: for all elements regardless of whether they were dc or dcterms. I use both in some bibliographic management at the MPC and was wondering if the consistent use of the single namespace dc: caused problems for people. </div><div><br></div><div>I ask because we want to update the dcterms.xsd distributed in the DDI package to the 2008 version (which adds a number of elements). My gut response was to do so in a way that supported the use of both dc and dcterms but wanted to check with those of you who currently use it, especially if you use objects from the dcterms.xsd.</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks for your input!</div><div>Wendy<br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div><div>Wendy L. Thomas <u></u> Phone: +1 612.624.4389</div><div>Data Access Core Director Fax: +1 612.626.8375</div><div>Minnesota Population Center Email: <a href="mailto:wlt@umn.edu" target="_blank">wlt@umn.edu</a></div><div>University of Minnesota</div><div>50 Willey Hall</div><div>225 19th Avenue South</div><div>Minneapolis, MN 55455</div></div>
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