DOCBOOK-APPS: What to do about ID vs. xsl:key?

[Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>]

If you pass a document that doesn't contain a doctype declaration (or
one that has an inaccessible location specified for the DTD) to an
XSLT processor, it doesn't get any information about ID attributes in
the document.

Subsequently, all of the cross-referencing in the stylesheets fails.

Debugging this is tedious the first time, annoying the second, and
infuriating thereafter. Especially if you forget that this problem
exists and start mucking with templates before you add a doctype
declaration to your source document :-)

One way around this problem would be to use xsl:key instead of id().
But xsl:key isn't supported by all XSLT processors.

Catch 22.

Thoughts?

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | You can parody and make fun of
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | almost anything, but that does not
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee | turn the universe into a
                                   | caricature.--Bernard Berenson