Name

<!DOCTYPE>

Synopsis

<!DOCTYPE root-element SYSTEM|PUBLIC [name] URI-of-DTD >

Description

The <!DOCTYPE> instruction allows you to specify a DTD for an XML document. This instruction can currently take one of two forms:

<!DOCTYPE root-element SYSTEM "URI_of_DTD">
<!DOCTYPE root-element PUBLIC "name" "URI_of_DTD">

Keywords

SYSTEM

The SYSTEM variant specifies the URI location of a DTD for private use in the document. The DTD is applied to all elements inside of root_element. For example:

<!DOCTYPE <Book> SYSTEM
 "http://mycompany.com/dtd/mydoctype.dtd">
PUBLIC

The PUBLIC variant is used in situations where a DTD has been publicized for widespread use. In those cases, the DTD is assigned a unique name, which the XML processor may use by itself to attempt to retrieve the DTD. If that fails, the URI is used:

<!DOCTYPE <Book> PUBLIC
  "-//O'Reilly//DTD//EN"
  "http://www.oreilly.com/dtd/nutshellbook.dtd">

Public DTDs follow a specific naming convention. See the XML specification for more details on naming public DTDs.

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