Michael (and Council) -- "I know what he said, but what does it mean?" [1] -- Napoleon Solo It turns out, to my surprise, that an xsd:NCName is valid as an xsd:QName. See test file [2] and, if you need to, its schema [3]. I've tested this with both `jing` and `xmllint`. I can see that this is the case: production #6 of _Namespaces in XML_[4] clearly says that the prefix is optional. But I don't understand a) what it means, i.e., what is the namespace part of a QName that does not have a prefix; b) what the prose of [4] section 3 immediately before production #6 means ("some names may be given as qualified names"), since as far as I can tell the only XML names that aren't already qualified names are those that start with a colon, and who would do that? Besides, "authors should not use the colon in XML names except for namespace purposes";[5] or c) what's the point, i.e., why did W3C do it that way? No rush on answering this, it doesn't change anything; it's just an "inquiring minds want to know" thing. Notes ----- [1] From _The Man from U.N.C.L.E._; see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_Ky4KPzKwY#t=103.781343 from ~01:13 to ~01:43. [2] https://bauman.zapto.org/~syd/temp/4TEICouncil/QName_test.xml [3] https://bauman.zapto.org/~syd/temp/4TEICouncil/QName_test.rng [4] http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xml-names-19990114 [5] From a note in section 2.3 of the XML 1.0 spec, 2nd edition; http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xml-20001006