standalone in prolog: specs explanation needed

[VK]

It is possibly more suitable to address this question to W3C mailing
list, but I'm trying here first.

Could anyone comment on <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-rmd>

The first statement says:

"If there are external markup declarations but there is no standalone
document declaration, the value "no" is assumed."

A bit below it says:

Validity constraint: Standalone Document Declaration
The standalone document declaration MUST have the value "no" if any
external markup declarations contain declarations of:
<list of circumstances>

Does it mean that for the situations spelled in the MUST section one
has to
explicetly set standalone="no" ? Or does it mean that for the
situations spelled in the MUST section the value "no" /must/ be assumed
and in other situations it /may/ be assumed? Practically for me it was
always obvious to set standalone="no" if DTD is used, without hope on
some default values - but of course it doesn't prove anything.

 

[Richard Tobin]

Or does it mean that for the
situations spelled in the MUST section the value "no" /must/ be assumed
and in other situations it /may/ be assumed?

Since it's a constraint attached to the production for standalone
declarations, I think you should take it as "if there is a standalone
declaration, it must have the value "no" if ...".

You're certainly not required to have one.

-- Richard