Feature #4051
Updated by Michael Kay over 5 years ago
**FINAL OUTCOME: PROPOSAL NOT IMPLEMENTED**
It is common practice in serious XSLT programming to put documentation comments in elements/attributes using a namespace dedicated to this purpose. For example, the XSLTdoc tool uses `xmlns:xd="http://www.pnp-software.com/XSLTdoc"`
Unfortunately this namespace "leaks" into the semantics of the XSLT code, even at runtime. Even with exclude-result-prefixes, a namespace declared in the stylesheet needs to be retained in the static context accessible at execution time in case it is used, for example, when casting a dynamically-constructed string to a QName. This also means that it needs to appear in exported SEF files, cluttering up the file and reducing performance.
There might be a case for an attribute saxon:exclude-namespaces which is stronger in its effect than exclude-result-prefixes: it should mean that the namespace binding is available only for resolving element and attribute names appearing literally in the stylesheet, and not for resolving QNames-in-content, either at compile time or at run time. This means it would not clutter up SEF files.
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