RFC 7991

The "xml2rfc" Version 3 Vocabulary

📅 published December 2016, from ietf

RFC 7991: The "xml2rfc" Version 3 Vocabulary 💖

Quick title-block tea ☕: this one comes from the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) 🏛️, and the author is P. Hoffman from ICANN 🌸. It's dated December 2016 📅, and it's Informational 📚, which is a fancy way of saying it's not a standard. It's ISSN 2070-1721 🔢. It obsoletes RFC 7749 🔄, and it doesn't update anything else.

Abstract ✨

Okay so this doc defines the "xml2rfc" version 3 vocabulary 🎀. It's an XML-based language for writing RFCs and Internet-Drafts 📝. It's heavily derived from the version 2 vocabulary, which is also still being discussed 💬. This document obsoletes the v2 grammar described in RFC 7749 🫶.

Status of This Memo 🌈

Bestie, this is not an Internet Standards Track specification 🙅‍♀️. It's published for informational purposes 📖.

This document is a product of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) 👑. It represents information the IAB decided was valuable enough to keep on the permanent record 🗂️. It represents the consensus of the IAB ✅. Documents the IAB approves for publication are not a candidate for any level of Internet Standard, so check Section 2 of RFC 7841 if you want the details 🔍.

Want to know the current status, any errata, or how to send feedback? Go to http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7991 💌.

Copyright Notice 💜

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication 📜. Please read those carefully, because they describe your rights and restrictions for this document 🧾.

Table of Contents 📑

   1. Introduction ....................................................5
      1.1. Expected Updates to the Specification ......................5
      1.2. Design Criteria for the Changes in v3 ......................6
      1.3. Differences from v2 to v3 ..................................6
           1.3.1. New Elements in v3 ..................................6
           1.3.2. New Attributes for Existing Elements ................7
           1.3.3. Elements and Attributes Deprecated from v2 ..........8
           1.3.4. Additional Changes from v2 ..........................9
      1.4. Syntax Notation ...........................................10
   2. Elements .......................................................10
      2.1. <abstract> ................................................11
      2.2. <address> .................................................12
      2.3. <annotation> ..............................................12
      2.4. <area> ....................................................13
      2.5. <artwork> .................................................13
      2.6. <aside> ...................................................17
      2.7. <author> ..................................................18
      2.8. <back> ....................................................19
      2.9. <bcp14> ...................................................20
      2.10. <blockquote> .............................................20
      2.11. <boilerplate> ............................................22
      2.12. <br> .....................................................22
      2.13. <city> ...................................................22
      2.14. <code> ...................................................22
      2.15. <country> ................................................23
      2.16. <cref> ...................................................23
      2.17. <date> ...................................................24
      2.18. <dd> .....................................................25
      2.19. <displayreference> .......................................27
      2.20. <dl> .....................................................27
      2.21. <dt> .....................................................29
      2.22. <em> .....................................................30
      2.23. <email> ..................................................31
      2.24. <eref> ...................................................31
      2.25. <figure> .................................................32
      2.26. <front> ..................................................34
      2.27. <iref> ...................................................35
      2.28. <keyword> ................................................36
      2.29. <li> .....................................................36
      2.30. <link> ...................................................38
      2.31. <middle> .................................................39
      2.32. <name> ...................................................39
      2.33. <note> ...................................................39
      2.34. <ol> .....................................................40
      2.35. <organization> ...........................................42
      2.36. <phone> ..................................................43
      2.37. <postal> .................................................43
      2.38. <postalLine> .............................................44
      2.39. <refcontent> .............................................44
      2.40. <reference> ..............................................45
      2.41. <referencegroup> .........................................46
      2.42. <references> .............................................46
      2.43. <region> .................................................47
      2.44. <relref> .................................................47
      2.45. <rfc> ....................................................51
      2.46. <section> ................................................54
      2.47. <seriesInfo> .............................................57
      2.48. <sourcecode> .............................................59
      2.49. <street> .................................................61
      2.50. <strong> .................................................61
      2.51. <sub> ....................................................62
      2.52. <sup> ....................................................63
      2.53. <t> ......................................................64
      2.54. <table> ..................................................66
      2.55. <tbody> ..................................................67
      2.56. <td> .....................................................67
      2.57. <tfoot> ..................................................69
      2.58. <th> .....................................................69
      2.59. <thead> ..................................................71
      2.60. <title> ..................................................72
      2.61. <tr> .....................................................72
      2.62. <tt> .....................................................73
      2.63. <ul> .....................................................74
      2.64. <uri> ....................................................75
      2.65. <workgroup> ..............................................75
      2.66. <xref> ...................................................75
   3. Elements from v2 That Have Been Deprecated .....................78
      3.1. <c> .......................................................78
      3.2. <facsimile> ...............................................78
      3.3. <format> ..................................................79
      3.4. <list> ....................................................79
      3.5. <postamble> ...............................................80
      3.6. <preamble> ................................................81
      3.7. <spanx> ...................................................81
      3.8. <texttable> ...............................................82
      3.9. <ttcol> ...................................................83
      3.10. <vspace> .................................................84
   4. SVG ............................................................84
   5. Use of CDATA Structures and Escaping ...........................85
   6. Internationalization Considerations ............................85
   7. Security Considerations ........................................85
   8. IANA Considerations ............................................86
      8.1. Internet Media Type Registration ..........................86
      8.2. Link Relation Registration ................................87
   9. References .....................................................88
      9.1. Normative References ......................................88
      9.2. Informative References ....................................88
   Appendix A. Front-Page ("Boilerplate") Generation .................93
     A.1. The "ipr" Attribute ........................................93
       A.1.1. Current Values: "*trust200902" .........................93
       A.1.2. Historic Values ........................................95
     A.2. The "submissionType" Attribute .............................96
     A.3. The "consensus" Attribute ..................................97
   Appendix B. The v3 Format and Processing Tools ....................98
     B.1. Including External Text with XInclude ......................99
     B.2. Anchors and IDs ...........................................100
       B.2.1. Overlapping Values ....................................100
     B.3. Attributes Controlled by the Prep Tool ....................102
   Appendix C. RELAX NG Schema ......................................104
   Appendix D. Schema Differences from v2 ...........................127
   IAB Members at the Time of Approval ..............................151
   Acknowledgements .................................................151
   Author's Address .................................................151

1. Introduction ✨

This doc describes version 3 ("v3") of the "xml2rfc" vocabulary 🦋. It's an XML-based language ("Extensible Markup Language" [XML]) used for writing RFCs [RFC7322] and Internet-Drafts [IDGUIDE] 💅.

Here's the glow-up story 🌱. This document obsoletes the version 2 vocabulary ("v2") [RFC7749], which contains the extended language definition. That document in turn obsoletes the original version ("v1") [RFC2629]. This document directly copies material from [RFC7749] wherever possible 🫶, so if something feels familiar, it's not a coincidence lol.

The v3 format will be used as part of the new RFC Series format described in [RFC6949] 🌸. The new format will be handled by one or more new tools that prepare the XML and convert it to other representations 🧚. Features of the expected tools are described in Appendix B 📎. That section defines some terms used throughout this document, like "prep tool" and "formatter" 🔧.

Also, the vocabulary has some constructs that might not show up when you generate the final text 🙈. They can still be super useful for other stuff, though, like index generation, populating a keyword database, or syntax checks 🍓.

In this document, the term "format" is used when describing types of documents, mainly XML and HTML 📄. The term "representation" is used for a specific instantiation of a format, like an XML document or an HTML document that was created from an XML document 🎀.

1.1. Expected Updates to the Specification 🔮

Okay, real talk: non-interoperable changes in later versions of this specification are likely, based on what people learn while implementing the new publication toolsets 🛠️✨. Revised documents will be published to capture those changes as the toolsets get finished 📚. Other implementers must not expect those changes to remain backwards-compatible with the details in this document 🙅‍♀️. So don't get too attached, babe 💀.

1.2. Design Criteria for the Changes in v3 ✨

okay so here's the vibe check for going from v2 to v3 🎀 the design criteria are:

starting and editing a v3 document should be way easier than doing it with v2 💅
there will be good v2-to-v3 conversion tools for when an author wants to switch versions 🔥
there are no current plans to make v3 XML the required submission format for drafts or RFCs 🙈 that might happen eventually, but it's giving "years away" energy

we want to keep as much of the v2 grammar as makes sense within those criteria, and we don't want to make gratuitous changes to it. basically, "we would rather encourage backwards compatibility but not be constrained by it." 💜 still, making it easier to start and edit a v3 document matters more than backwards compatibility with v2, given the last two criteria, so that's the priority 🫶

v3 is upwards compatible with v2, meaning a v2 document is meant to be a valid v3 document too 🦋 however, some v2 features are deprecated in v3 in favor of new elements. those are listed in Section 1.3.3 and described in [RFC7749] 🧚

1.3. Differences from v2 to v3 🌈

this is a (hopefully) complete list of all the technical changes between [RFC7749] and this document 👑

1.3.1. New Elements in v3 ✨

add <dl>, <ul>, and <ol> as new ways to make lists. this is a big change from v2 because the child under these elements is <li>, not <t> 😭 an <li> can either contain one or more <t> elements, or contain the flowing text that normally lives in <t>. these lists are children of <section>s and other lists instead of <t>.
add <strong>, <em>, <tt>, <sub>, and <sup> for character formatting 💅
add <aside> for incidental text that gets indented when displayed 🎀
add <sourcecode> to tell it apart from <artwork> 🍓
add <table>, <thead>, <tbody>, <tfoot>, <tr>, <td>, and <th> to give table functionality like in HTML 🌸
add <boilerplate> to hold the automatically generated boilerplate text 🤍
add <blockquote> to indicate a quotation in a paragraph-like format 💬
add <name> to sections, notes, figures, and texttables so you can use character formatting (fixed-width font) in their titles and allow references in the names 🧁
add <postalLine>, which is free text representing one line of the address 📮
add <displayreference> to display more mnemonic anchor names for automatically included references 🔖
add <refcontent> for better control of the text in a reference ✍️
add <referencegroup> so you can reference multi-RFC documents like STDs and BCPs 📚
add <relref> to reference specific sections or anchors in references 🔗
add <link> to point to a resource related to the RFC 🌐
add <br> for line breaks (but not blank lines) in the generated output for table cells 🫧
add <svg> to make it easy to include SVG drawings in <artwork> 🎨

1.3.2. New Attributes for Existing Elements 💜

add the "sortRefs", "symRefs", "tocDepth", and "tocInclude" attributes to <rfc> to cover the Processing Instructions (PIs) from v2 that are still needed in the grammar. add "prepTime" to indicate when the XML went through a preparation step. add "version" to indicate the version of the xml2rfc vocabulary used in the document. add "scripts" to indicate which scripts are needed to render the document. add "expiresDate" for when an Internet-Draft expires 🗓️
add "ascii" attributes to <email>, <organization>, <street>, <city>, <region>, <country>, and <code>. also add "asciiFullname", "asciiInitials", and "asciiSurname" to <author>. this lets an author put their info in their native scripts as the main entry while still getting ASCII-equivalent values in the processed documents 🌏✨
add "anchor" attributes to lots of block elements so they can be linked with <relref> and <xref> 🦋
add the "section", "relative", and "sectionFormat" attributes to <xref> 🔗
add the "numbered" and "removeInRFC" attributes to <section> 🙈
add the "removeInRFC" attribute to <note> 📝
add "pn" to <artwork>, <aside>, <blockquote>, <boilerplate>, <dt>, <figure>, <iref>, <li>, <references>, <section>, <sourcecode>, <t>, and <table> to hold automatically generated numbers for items in a section that don't have their own numbering (namely figures and tables) 🔢
add "display" to <cref> to tell tools whether or not to display the comment 👀
add "keepWithNext" and "keepWithPrevious" to <t> as a hint for pagination tools, so they try to keep the paragraph with the next or previous element 📄

1.3.3. Elements and Attributes Deprecated from v2 🥀

deprecated elements and attributes are legacy vocabulary from v2 that's still supported for input to v3 tools. they'll likely be removed from those tools in the future. deprecated attributes are still listed in Section 2, and deprecated elements are listed in Section 3. see Appendix B for more info on tools and how they'll handle deprecated features 📖

deprecate <list> in favor of <dl>, <ul>, and <ol> 👋
deprecate <spanx>; replace it with <strong>, <em>, and <tt> 👋
deprecate <vspace> because its major use, creating pseudo-paragraph-breaks in lists, is now handled properly 👋
deprecate <texttable>, <ttcol>, and <c>; replace them with the new table elements (<table> and the elements that can go inside it) 👋
deprecate <facsimile> because it's rarely used 👋
deprecate <format> because it's not useful and has caused surprises for authors in the past. if the goal is to provide a single URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) for a reference, use the "target" attribute in <reference> instead 👋
deprecate <preamble> and <postamble> in favor of simply using <t> before or after the figure. this also deprecates the "align" attribute in <figure> 👋
deprecate the "title" attribute in <section>, <note>, <figure>, <references>, and <texttable> in favor of the new <name> 👋
deprecate the "alt" and "src" attributes in <figure> because they overlap with the attributes in <artwork> 👋
deprecate the "xml:space" attribute in <artwork> because there was only one useful value. deprecate the "height" and "width" attributes in both <artwork> and <figure> because they're not needed for the new output formats 👋
deprecate the "pageno" attribute in <xref> because it was unused in v2. deprecate the "none" values for the "format" attribute in <xref> because they make no semantic sense 👋

1.3.4. Additional Changes from v2 🧚

allow non-ASCII characters in the format. the characters that are actually allowed will be decided by the RFC Series Editor 🌍
allow <artwork> and <sourcecode> to be used on their own in <section> (no more confining them to a figure) 🎀
give more specifics on handling the "type" attribute in <artwork> 📐
allow <strong>, <em>, <tt>, <eref>, and <xref> in <cref> 💅
allow the sub-elements inside a <reference> to be in any order 🔀
turn off the autogeneration of anchors in <cref> because there's no use case for them that can't be achieved in other ways 🙅‍♀️
allow more than one <artwork>, or more than one <sourcecode>, in <figure> 🖼️
in <front>, make <date> optional 🗓️
in <date>, add restrictions to the "date" and "year" attributes when used in the <front> for the document's boilerplate text 📜
in <postal>, allow the sub-elements to be in any order. also allow the new <postalLine> to be included instead of the older elements 📮
in <section>, restrict the names of the anchors that can be used on some types of sections 🔖
make <seriesInfo> a child of <front>, and deprecate it as a child of <reference>. this also deprecates some of the attributes from <rfc> and moves them into <seriesInfo> 🫶
<t> now only contains non-block elements, so it no longer contains <figure> elements 🚫
don't generate the grammar from a DTD. instead, get it directly from the RELAX Next Generation (RNG) grammar [RNG] 🌈

1.4. Syntax Notation 🧾

the XML vocabulary here is defined in prose, based on the RELAX NG schema [RNC] contained in Appendix C (specified in RELAX NG Compact Notation (RNC)) 📖

the schema can be used for automated validity checks, but some constraints are only described in prose (for example, the conditionally required presence of the "abbrev" attribute) 🔍

2. Elements 💖

the sections below describe all the elements and their attributes 🎀

attributes that aren't labeled "mandatory" are optional 💅

many elements have an optional "anchor" attribute. in all cases, the value of the "anchor" attribute needs to be a valid XML "Name" (Section 2.3 of [XML]), and it's additionally constrained to US-ASCII characters [USASCII]. so the character repertoire is "A-Z", "a-z", "0-9", "_", "-", ".", and ":", where "0-9", ".", and "-" are disallowed as start characters 🦋 anchors are described in more detail in Appendix B.2 🧚

tools interpreting the XML described here will collapse horizontal whitespace and line breaks to a single whitespace (except inside <artwork> and <sourcecode>), and they'll trim leading and trailing whitespace ✂️ tab characters (U+0009) inside <artwork> and <sourcecode> are prohibited 🚫

some elements have attributes that aren't described in this section because they're specific to the prep tool. people writing tools to process this format should read all of the appendices for a complete description of these attributes 📚

every element in the v3 vocabulary can have an "xml:lang" attribute, an "xml:base" attribute, or both 🌸 the xml:lang attribute specifies the language used in the element. this is sometimes useful for renderers that display different fonts for ideographic characters used in China and Japan 🇨🇳🇯🇵 the xml:base attribute is sometimes added to an XML file during XML-to-XML conversion where the base file has XInclude attributes (see Appendix B.1) 🔧

2.1. `<abstract>` 📝

contains the Abstract of the document. see [RFC7322] for more info on restrictions for the Abstract 🫧

this element appears as a child element of <front> (Section 2.26) 👑

content model:

in any order, but at least one of:

<dl> elements (Section 2.20)
<ol> elements (Section 2.34)
<t> elements (Section 2.53)
<ul> elements (Section 2.63)

2.1.1. `"anchor"` Attribute 🔖

document-wide unique identifier for the Abstract 🆔

2.2. `<address>` 📮

provides address information for the author 💌

this element appears as a child element of <author> (Section 2.7) 🫶

content model:

in this order:

one optional <postal> element (Section 2.37)
one optional <phone> element (Section 2.36)
one optional <facsimile> element (Section 3.2)
one optional <email> element (Section 2.23)
one optional <uri> element (Section 2.64)

2.3. `<annotation>`

Okay so <annotation> is how you tack extra prose onto a bibliographic reference 💅 It's shown after all the generated reference text, so it's like the bonus track at the end ✨

This element appears as a child element of <reference> (Section 2.40).

Content model:

In any order:

Text
<bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
<cref> elements (Section 2.16)
<em> elements (Section 2.22)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<iref> elements (Section 2.27)
<relref> elements (Section 2.44)
<spanx> elements (Section 3.7)
<strong> elements (Section 2.50)
<sub> elements (Section 2.51)
<sup> elements (Section 2.52)
<tt> elements (Section 2.62)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.4. `<area>`

Here's where you say which IETF area your document is about 🌸 Heads up, it's currently not used when generating documents, so it's more of a vibe check than a功能 thing 🙈

The value ought to be either the full name or the abbreviation of one of the IETF areas listed at http://www.ietf.org/iesg/area.html. The RFC Series Editor keeps a list of full names and abbreviations, so that's your source of truth 📚

This element appears as a child element of <front> (Section 2.26).

Content model: only text content.

2.5. `<artwork>`

This is your go-to for putting "artwork" in the doc 🎨 <artwork> gives you full control over horizontal whitespace and line breaks, which is why it's used for diagrams ("line art") and protocol unit diagrams. Tab characters (U+0009) inside this element are a no-go 🚫

Alternatively, the src attribute lets you point at an external graphics file, like an SVG vector drawing or a bitmap, using a URI 🖼️ In that case the text content is the fallback for output formats that can't show graphics, so it ought to hold either (1) a "line art" version of the graphic or (2) prose that describes the image in enough detail to be useful.

In [RFC7749], <artwork> was also used for source code and formal languages. In v3, that job now belongs to <sourcecode> 💻

There are at least five ways to include SVG in artwork in Internet-Drafts 🦋

Inline, by including all of the SVG in the content of the element, such as: <artwork type="svg"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg...">
Inline, but using XInclude (see Appendix B.1), such as: <artwork type="svg"><xi:include href=...>
As a data: URI, such as: <artwork type="svg" src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3...">
As a URI to an external entity, such as: <artwork type="svg" src="http://www.example.com/...">
As a local file, such as: <artwork type="svg" src="diagram12.svg">

The use of SVG in Internet-Drafts and RFCs is covered in way more detail in [RFC7996] 🤓

The above methods for including SVG art can also work for text artwork, but a data: URI is probably confusing for text artwork 😵‍💫

Formatters that do pagination should try to keep artwork on a single page. This stops artwork that's split across pages from looking like two separate pieces of art 📄✂️

See Section 5 for how to deal with using "&" and "<" characters in artwork.

This element appears as a child element of <aside> (Section 2.6), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <dd> (Section 2.18), <figure> (Section 2.25), <li> (Section 2.29), <section> (Section 2.46), <td> (Section 2.56), and <th> (Section 2.58).

Content model:

Either:

Text

Or:

<svg> elements (Section 4)

2.5.1. "align" Attribute

This one controls whether the artwork sits left justified (the default), centered, or right justified 🎀 The artwork is lined up relative to the document's left margin.

Allowed values:

"left" (default)
"center"
"right"

2.5.2. "alt" Attribute

This is the alternative text description for the artwork 🫶 It's more than just a summary or caption. When the art comes from the src attribute and that format supports alternate text, the alt text comes from the artwork's own text instead of this attribute. This matters a LOT for readers who are visually impaired, and for anyone on devices that can't show the artwork well, or at all 😭

2.5.3. "anchor" Attribute

This is a document-wide unique identifier for the artwork 🔖

2.5.4. "height" Attribute

Deprecated. 🪦

2.5.5. "name" Attribute

This is a filename that suits the contents, like for extracting to a local file 📁 It's super helpful for other tools, like automated syntax checkers that work by pulling out the artwork. The name attribute doesn't need to be unique across <artwork> elements in a document. If several <artwork> elements share the same name, a processing tool might assume they're all fragments of one file, and it can collect those fragments for later processing 🧩 See Section 7 for a discussion of possible problems with the value of this attribute.

2.5.6. "src" Attribute

This is the URI reference of a graphics file [RFC3986], or the name of a file on the local disk 🗂️ It can also be a "data" URI [RFC2397] that contains the contents of the graphics file. Heads up that including art with src depends on what the processing tool reading the XML can handle. Tools need to be able to handle the file: URI, and they should be able to handle http: and https: URIs too. The prep tool will be able to handle reading the src attribute.

If there's no URI scheme in the attribute, the attribute is treated as a local filename relative to the current directory. Processing tools must be careful not to accept dangerous filename values, especially ones with absolute references outside the current directory 🚨 Document creators should think hard before using relative URIs, since files can cause problems later if they move around on the disk. Also, documents should most likely use explicit URI schemes wherever possible 💖

In some cases, the prep tool may remove the src attribute after processing its value. See [RFC7998] for a description of this 🧹

It is an error to have both a src attribute and content in the <artwork> element. Pick one, bestie 🙅‍♀️

2.5.7. "type" Attribute

This specifies the type of the artwork. The value is free text, with certain values designated as preferred 🌈

The preferred values for <artwork> types are:

ascii-art
binary-art
call-flow
hex-dump
svg

The RFC Series Editor maintains a complete list of the preferred values on the RFC Editor web site, and that list is expected to be updated over time 📝 So a consumer of v3 XML should not fail when it runs into an unexpected type or when no type is specified. The table will also show which types of art can appear in plain-text output (for example, type="svg" cannot) 🙈

2.5.8. "width" Attribute

Deprecated. 🪦

2.5.9. "xml:space" Attribute

Deprecated. 🪦

2.6. `<aside>`

This is a container for content that's semantically less important or a little tangential to the stuff around it 🧚 Think of it as the side quest 🗺️

This element appears as a child element of <section> (Section 2.46).

Content model:

In any order:

<artwork> elements (Section 2.5)
<dl> elements (Section 2.20)
<figure> elements (Section 2.25)
<iref> elements (Section 2.27)
<list> elements (Section 3.4)
<ol> elements (Section 2.34)
<t> elements (Section 2.53)
<table> elements (Section 2.54)
<ul> elements (Section 2.63)

2.6.1. "anchor" Attribute

This is a document-wide unique identifier for this aside 🔖

2.7. `<author>`

This gives you info about a document's author 🖋️ It's used for the document itself (at the very beginning) and for referenced documents too.

The <author> elements inside the document's <front> element fill in the boilerplate and also generate the "Author's Address" section (see [RFC7322]) 💌

Heads up: an "author" can also just be an organization! Skip all of the name attributes and add the <organization> child element instead 🏢

The role attribute can mark an author as "editor". That shows up on the front page, in the "Author's Address" section, and in bibliographic references 📚 Note that this specification doesn't define a precise meaning for the term "editor", so no pressure to figure that one out 🙃

This element appears as a child element of <front> (Section 2.26).

Content model:

In this order:

One optional <organization> element (Section 2.35)
One optional <address> element (Section 2.2)

2.7.1. "asciiFullname" Attribute

The ASCII equivalent of the author's full name 🔤

2.7.2. "asciiInitials" Attribute

The ASCII equivalent of the author's initials, to be used together with the separately specified asciiSurname 🔤

2.7.3. "asciiSurname" Attribute

The ASCII equivalent of the author's surname, to be used together with the separately specified asciiInitials 🔤

2.7.4. "fullname" Attribute

The full name, used in the automatically generated "Author's Address" section 🧾 Even though this attribute is optional, if one or more of the asciiFullname, asciiInitials, or asciiSurname attributes have values, the fullname attribute is required. No skipping this one, periodt 💅

2.7.5. "initials" Attribute

An abbreviated version of the given name(s), used together with the separately specified surname 🔠 It usually shows up on the front page, in footers, and in references.

Some processors will post-process the value. For instance, when it only has a single letter, they might add a trailing dot. Relying on that kind of post-processing can lead to results that vary across formatters, so it ought to be avoided 🙅‍♀️

2.7.6. "role" Attribute

This specifies the role the author had in creating the document 🎭

Allowed value:

"editor"

2.7.7. "surname" Attribute

The author's surname, used together with the separately specified initials 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 It usually shows up on the front page, in footers, and in references.

2.8. `<back>`

This is the "back" part of the document: the references and appendices 🎬 Inside <back>, <section> elements are how you mark appendices.

This element appears as a child element of <rfc> (Section 2.45).

Content model:

In this order:

Optional <displayreference> elements (Section 2.19)
Optional <references> elements (Section 2.42)
Optional <section> elements (Section 2.46)

2.9. `<bcp14>`

This marks text that's a phrase defined in [BCP14], like "MUST", "SHOULD NOT", and so on 🔥 When it's shown in some output formats, the text in this element might get highlighted ✨ Using this element is optional.

Only wrap the actual phrase from BCP 14, not the full definition of a requirement 🎯 For example, this is correct: The packet <bcp14>MUST</bcp14> be dropped. But this is NOT correct: <bcp14>The packet MUST be dropped.</bcp14> Keep the wrapping tight, bestie 💜

This element appears as a child element of <annotation> (Section 2.3), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <dd> (Section 2.18), <dt> (Section 2.21), <em> (Section 2.22), <li> (Section 2.29), <preamble> (Section 3.6), <refcontent> (Section 2.39), <strong> (Section 2.50), <sub> (Section 2.51), <sup> (Section 2.52), <t> (Section 2.53), <td> (Section 2.56), <th> (Section 2.58), and <tt> (Section 2.62).

Content model: only text content.

2.10. `<blockquote>` 💬

Okay bestie, this one is for quoting other people's words 🫶 It says a block of text is a quotation.

This element shows up as a child of <section> (Section 2.46).

Content model:

Either:

In any order, but at least one of:
- <artwork> elements (Section 2.5)
- <dl> elements (Section 2.20)
- <figure> elements (Section 2.25)
- <ol> elements (Section 2.34)
- <sourcecode> elements (Section 2.48)
- <t> elements (Section 2.53)
- <ul> elements (Section 2.63)

Or:

In any order, but at least one of:
- Text
- <bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
- <cref> elements (Section 2.16)
- <em> elements (Section 2.22)
- <eref> elements (Section 2.24)
- <iref> elements (Section 2.27)
- <relref> elements (Section 2.44)
- <strong> elements (Section 2.50)
- <sub> elements (Section 2.51)
- <sup> elements (Section 2.52)
- <tt> elements (Section 2.62)
- <xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.10.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔖

This is the document-wide unique ID for this quotation, so nothing else in the doc can share it.

2.10.2. "cite" Attribute 🔗

This is where the quote came from: the source of the citation. It must be a URI. If the "quotedFrom" attribute is also there, processing tools will use this URI as the link for that attribute's text, which is so cute 🥺

2.10.3. "quotedFrom" Attribute ✍️

This is the name of the person or document the text is quoted from. A formatter should show it as visible text at the end of the quotation. Credit where credit is due, always 💅

2.11. `<boilerplate>` 📜

This is the boilerplate text for the document, and the prep tool fills it in for you, so you don't have to type it out yourself 🙌

This element holds <section> elements. Every <section> element inside it must have the "numbered" attribute set to "false". No numbering allowed here, it's giving unnumbered 🌸

This element appears as a child of <front> (Section 2.26).

Content model:

One or more <section> elements (Section 2.46)

2.12. `<br>` 🍓

This tells a formatting tool to put a line break in the output. If you stack several of these in a row, the extra ones get ignored, so don't spam them, bestie 😭

This element appears as a child of <td> (Section 2.56) and <th> (Section 2.58).

Content model: this element does not have any contents. It's just vibes ✨

2.13. `<city>` 🏙️

This gives the city name in a postal address.

This element appears as a child of <postal> (Section 2.37).

Content model: only text content.

2.13.1. "ascii" Attribute 🔤

This is the ASCII version of the city name, for when you need plain characters.

2.14. `<code>` 🔢

This gives the postal region code.

This element appears as a child of <postal> (Section 2.37).

Content model: only text content.

2.14.1. "ascii" Attribute 🔤

This is the ASCII version of the postal code.

2.15. `<country>` 🌍

This gives the country name or code in a postal address.

This element appears as a child of <postal> (Section 2.37).

Content model: only text content.

2.15.1. "ascii" Attribute 🔤

This is the ASCII version of the country name.

2.16. `<cref>` 🗒️

This represents a comment. Comments are for when the doc is still a work in progress, and they can show up inline and highlighted, at the end of the document, or not at all, depending on which formatting tool you're using 👀

This element appears as a child of <annotation> (Section 2.3), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <c> (Section 3.1), <dd> (Section 2.18), <dt> (Section 2.21), <em> (Section 2.22), <li> (Section 2.29), <name> (Section 2.32), <postamble> (Section 3.5), <preamble> (Section 3.6), <strong> (Section 2.50), <sub> (Section 2.51), <sup> (Section 2.52), <t> (Section 2.53), <td> (Section 2.56), <th> (Section 2.58), <tt> (Section 2.62), and <ttcol> (Section 3.9).

Content model:

In any order:

Text
<em> elements (Section 2.22)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<relref> elements (Section 2.44)
<strong> elements (Section 2.50)
<sub> elements (Section 2.51)
<sup> elements (Section 2.52)
<tt> elements (Section 2.62)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.16.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔖

This is the document-wide unique ID for this comment.

2.16.2. "display" Attribute 👁️

This suggests whether formatting tools should display the comment. Setting it to "false" is a neat move when you want to keep a comment around after you've already dealt with it, like a receipt 🧾

Allowed values:

"true" (default)
"false"

2.16.3. "source" Attribute 🫂

This holds the "source" of a comment, like the name or initials of whoever left it. Give credit, babe 💜

2.17. `<date>` 📅

This gives the publication date. It's used in two situations: the boilerplate of the document you're producing, and inside bibliographic references that use the <front> element.

Boilerplate for Internet-Drafts and RFCs: This element defines the date of publication for the current document (Internet-Draft or RFC). When producing Internet-Drafts, the prep tool uses this date to compute the expiration date (see [IDGUIDE]). When one or more of "year", "month", or "day" are left out, the prep tool will attempt to use the current system date if the attributes that are present are consistent with that date.

In dates in <rfc> elements, the month must be a number or a month in English. The prep tool will silently change text month names to numbers. Similarly, the year must be a four-digit number. Strict, but fair 🥹

When the prep tool is used to create Internet-Drafts, it will reject a submitted Internet-Draft that has a <date> element in the boilerplate for itself that is anything other than today. That is, the tool will not allow a submitter to specify a date other than the day of submission. To avoid this problem, authors might simply not include a <date> element in the boilerplate. Honestly, the easy fix is just skipping it 🙈

Bibliographic references: In dates in <reference> elements, the date information can have prose text for the month or year. For example, vague dates (year="ca. 2000"), date ranges (year="2012-2013"), non-specific months (month="Second quarter"), and so on are allowed. Vibes-based dates are welcome here 😌

This element appears as a child of <front> (Section 2.26).

Content model: this element does not have any contents.

2.17.1. "day" Attribute 🗓️

This is the day of publication.

2.17.2. "month" Attribute 🌙

This is the month or months of publication.

2.17.3. "year" Attribute ⭐

This is the year or years of publication.

2.18. `<dd>` 📝

This is the definition part of an entry in a definition list. The term is the other half, and together they make a pair 🎀

This element appears as a child of <dl> (Section 2.20).

Content model:

Either:

In any order, but at least one of:
- <artwork> elements (Section 2.5)
- <dl> elements (Section 2.20)
- <figure> elements (Section 2.25)
- <ol> elements (Section 2.34)
- <sourcecode> elements (Section 2.48)
- <t> elements (Section 2.53)
- <ul> elements (Section 2.63)

Or:

In any order, but at least one of:
- Text
- <bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
- <cref> elements (Section 2.16)
- <em> elements (Section 2.22)
- <eref> elements (Section 2.24)
- <iref> elements (Section 2.27)
- <relref> elements (Section 2.44)
- <strong> elements (Section 2.50)
- <sub> elements (Section 2.51)
- <sup> elements (Section 2.52)
- <tt> elements (Section 2.62)
- <xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.18.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔖

This is the document-wide unique ID for this definition.

2.19. `<displayreference>` 🪄

This is a little glow-up trick 💫 It maps the anchor of a reference to a name that gets displayed instead. That way, you can show more mnemonic names for references that get pulled in automatically. The mapping only applies to <xref> elements whose format is "default".

For example, if the reference uses the anchor "RFC6949", the following would cause that anchor in the body of displayed documents to be "RFC-dev":

<displayreference target="RFC6949" to="RFC-dev"/>

If a reference section is sorted, this element changes the sort order too, so keep an eye on that 👀

It is expected that this element will only be valid in input documents. It will likely be removed by prep tools when preparing a final version after those tools have replaced all of the associated anchors, targets, and "derivedContent" attributes. So it's a temporary helper, not a forever thing 🦋

This element appears as a child of <back> (Section 2.8).

Content model: this element does not have any contents.

2.19.1. "target" Attribute (Mandatory) 🎯

This attribute must be the name of an anchor in a <reference> or <referencegroup> element. It's required, so don't skip it!

2.19.2. "to" Attribute (Mandatory) 💌

This is the name that will be displayed as the anchor, instead of the anchor given in the <reference> element. The string you give must start with one of these characters: 0-9, a-z, or A-Z. The other characters in the string must be 0-9, a-z, A-Z, "-", ".", or "_". Keep it clean, babe ✨

2.20. `<dl>` 📖

This is a definition list. Each entry is a pair: a term (<dt>) and a definition (<dd>). It's a bit simpler than the HTML version, which lets you have multiple terms for one definition. Simple is iconic 💅

This element appears as a child of <abstract> (Section 2.1), <aside> (Section 2.6), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <dd> (Section 2.18), <li> (Section 2.29), <note> (Section 2.33), <section> (Section 2.46), <td> (Section 2.56), and <th> (Section 2.58).

Content model:

One or more sequences of:

One <dt> element
One <dd> element

2.20.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔖

This is the document-wide unique ID for the list.

2.20.2. "hanging" Attribute 🪧

This decides whether the term sits on the same line as the definition. hanging="true" means the term is to the left of the definition, and hanging="false" means the term gets its own line 🌈

Allowed values:

"false"
"true" (default)

2.20.3. "spacing" Attribute 📏

This decides whether there's a blank line between entries. spacing="normal" gives you a single blank line, and spacing="compact" gives you no space at all between them 🤏

Allowed values:

"normal" (default)
"compact"

2.21. `<dt>` 🏷️

This is the term being defined in a definition list. Think of it as the label on the box 📦

This element appears as a child of <dl> (Section 2.20).

Content model:

In any order:

Text
<bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
<cref> elements (Section 2.16)
<em> elements (Section 2.22)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<iref> elements (Section 2.27)
<relref> elements (Section 2.44)
<strong> elements (Section 2.50)
<sub> elements (Section 2.51)
<sup> elements (Section 2.52)
<tt> elements (Section 2.62)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.21.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔖

This is the document-wide unique ID for this term.

2.22. `<em>` ✨

Okay bestie, <em> is how you mark text as semantically emphasized 💖 Anything inside it gets displayed in italics after processing. You can stack it with other character formatting elements and the effects just add up 🎀

This element can show up as a child of <annotation> (Section 2.3), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <cref> (Section 2.16), <dd> (Section 2.18), <dt> (Section 2.21), <li> (Section 2.29), <preamble> (Section 3.6), <refcontent> (Section 2.39), <strong> (Section 2.50), <sub> (Section 2.51), <sup> (Section 2.52), <t> (Section 2.53), <td> (Section 2.56), <th> (Section 2.58), and <tt> (Section 2.62). It's giving main character energy everywhere 💅

Content model:

In any order:

Text
<bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
<cref> elements (Section 2.16)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<iref> elements (Section 2.27)
<relref> elements (Section 2.44)
<strong> elements (Section 2.50)
<sub> elements (Section 2.51)
<sup> elements (Section 2.52)
<tt> elements (Section 2.62)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.23. `<email>` 💌

Provides an email address, bestie 📬

The value is expected to be the addr-spec defined in Section 2 of [RFC6068].

This element appears as a child element of <address> (Section 2.2).

Content model: only text content.

2.23.1. "ascii" Attribute

This is the ASCII equivalent of the author's email address. It's only used if the email address has any internationalized components 🌸

2.24. `<eref>` 🔗

Represents an "external" link (as specified in the "target" attribute). It's super useful for dropping URIs right into the body of a document 🦋

If the <eref> element has non-empty text content, formatters should use that content as the displayed text that gets linked. Otherwise, the formatter should use the value of the "target" attribute as the displayed text. Formatters link the displayed text to the value of the "target" attribute in whatever way fits the output format ✨

For example, with an input of:

      This is described at
      <eref target="http://www.example.com/reports/r12.html"/>.

An HTML formatter might generate:

      This is described at
      <a href="http://www.example.com/reports/r12.html">
      http://www.example.com/reports/r12.html</a>.

With an input of:

      This is described
      <eref target="http://www.example.com/reports/r12.html">
      in this interesting report</eref>.

An HTML formatter might generate:

      This is described
      <a href="http://www.example.com/reports/r12.html">
      in this interesting report</a>.

This element appears as a child element of <annotation> (Section 2.3), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <c> (Section 3.1), <cref> (Section 2.16), <dd> (Section 2.18), <dt> (Section 2.21), <em> (Section 2.22), <li> (Section 2.29), <name> (Section 2.32), <postamble> (Section 3.5), <preamble> (Section 3.6), <strong> (Section 2.50), <sub> (Section 2.51), <sup> (Section 2.52), <t> (Section 2.53), <td> (Section 2.56), <th> (Section 2.58), <tt> (Section 2.62), and <ttcol> (Section 3.9).

Content model: only text content.

2.24.1. "target" Attribute (Mandatory) 🎯

This is the URI of the link target [RFC3986]. It must begin with a scheme name (such as "https://"), so it can't be relative to the URL of the current document 🙅‍♀️

2.25. `<figure>` 🖼️

Contains a figure with a caption that has the figure number. If the element contains a <name> element, the caption will also show that name 💕

This element appears as a child element of <aside> (Section 2.6), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <dd> (Section 2.18), <li> (Section 2.29), <section> (Section 2.46), <td> (Section 2.56), and <th> (Section 2.58).

Content model:

In this order:

One optional <name> element (Section 2.32)
Optional <iref> elements (Section 2.27)
One optional <preamble> element (Section 3.6)
In any order, but at least one of:
- <artwork> elements (Section 2.5)
- <sourcecode> elements (Section 2.48)
One optional <postamble> element (Section 3.5)

2.25.1. "align" Attribute

Deprecated 🙃

Note: does not affect title or <artwork> alignment.

Allowed values:

"left" (default)
"center"
"right"

2.25.2. "alt" Attribute

Deprecated. If the goal is to provide a single URI for a reference, use the "target" attribute in <reference> instead 🔗

2.25.3. "anchor" Attribute

Document-wide unique identifier for this figure 🏷️

2.25.4. "height" Attribute

Deprecated 🥀

2.25.5. "src" Attribute

Deprecated 🥀

2.25.6. "suppress-title" Attribute

Deprecated 🥀

Allowed values:

"true"
"false" (default)

2.25.7. "title" Attribute

Deprecated. Use <name> instead 💅

2.25.8. "width" Attribute

Deprecated 🥀

2.26. `<front>` 📜

Represents the "front matter": metadata (like author info), the Abstract, and any extra notes 📝

A <front> element may have more than one <seriesInfo> element. A <seriesInfo> element determines the document number (for RFCs) or name (for Internet-Drafts). Another <seriesInfo> element determines the "maturity level" (defined in [RFC2026]), using values of "std" for "Standards Track", "bcp" for "BCP", "info" for "Informational", "exp" for "Experimental", and "historic" for "Historic". The "name" attributes of those multiple <seriesInfo> elements interact as described in Section 2.47 🧩

This element appears as a child element of <reference> (Section 2.40) and <rfc> (Section 2.45).

Content model:

In this order:

One <title> element (Section 2.60)
Optional <seriesInfo> elements (Section 2.47)
One or more <author> elements (Section 2.7)
One optional <date> element (Section 2.17)
Optional <area> elements (Section 2.4)
Optional <workgroup> elements (Section 2.65)
Optional <keyword> elements (Section 2.28)
One optional <abstract> element (Section 2.1)
Optional <note> elements (Section 2.33)
One optional <boilerplate> element (Section 2.11)

2.27. `<iref>` 📇

Provides terms for the document's index 🗂️

Index entries can be either regular entries (when just the "item" attribute is given) or nested entries (when "subitem" is given as well), grouped under a regular entry.

Index entries generally point to the exact place where the <iref> element occurred. The exception is when it's a child element of <section>, in which case the whole section counts as relevant for that index entry. In some formats, index entries of this type might be displayed as ranges 🌈

When the prep tool is creating index content, it collects the items in a case-sensitive fashion for both the item and subitem level 🔍

This element appears as a child element of <annotation> (Section 2.3), <aside> (Section 2.6), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <c> (Section 3.1), <dd> (Section 2.18), <dt> (Section 2.21), <em> (Section 2.22), <figure> (Section 2.25), <li> (Section 2.29), <postamble> (Section 3.5), <preamble> (Section 3.6), <section> (Section 2.46), <strong> (Section 2.50), <sub> (Section 2.51), <sup> (Section 2.52), <t> (Section 2.53), <table> (Section 2.54), <td> (Section 2.56), <th> (Section 2.58), <tt> (Section 2.62), and <ttcol> (Section 3.9).

Content model: this element does not have any contents.

2.27.1. "item" Attribute (Mandatory)

This is the item to include 🏷️

2.27.2. "primary" Attribute

Setting this to "true" declares the occurrence as "primary", which might cause it to be highlighted in the index. There's no restriction on how many occurrences can be "primary" ⭐

Allowed values:

"true"
"false" (default)

2.27.3. "subitem" Attribute

This is the subitem to include 🌿

2.28. `<keyword>` 🔑

Specifies a keyword that applies to the document 🎀

Note that each element should only contain a single keyword. For multiple keywords, just repeat the element 💖

Keywords are used both in the RFC Index and in the metadata of generated document representations ✨

This element appears as a child element of <front> (Section 2.26).

Content model: only text content.

2.29. `<li>` 🍓

A list element, used in <ol> and <ul> 📋

This element appears as a child element of <ol> (Section 2.34) and <ul> (Section 2.63).

Content model:

Either:

In any order, but at least one of:

<artwork> elements (Section 2.5)
<dl> elements (Section 2.20)
<figure> elements (Section 2.25)
<ol> elements (Section 2.34)
<sourcecode> elements (Section 2.48)
<t> elements (Section 2.53)
<ul> elements (Section 2.63)

Or:

In any order, but at least one of:

Text
<bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
<cref> elements (Section 2.16)
<em> elements (Section 2.22)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<iref> elements (Section 2.27)
<relref> elements (Section 2.44)
<strong> elements (Section 2.50)
<sub> elements (Section 2.51)
<sup> elements (Section 2.52)
<tt> elements (Section 2.62)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.29.1. "anchor" Attribute

Document-wide unique identifier for this list item 🏷️

2.30. `<link>` 🔗

A link to an external document related to the RFC 🌐

These are the supported types of external documents that can be pointed to in a <link> element:

The current International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) for the RFC Series. The value for the "rel" attribute is "item". The link should use the form "urn:issn:".
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for this document. The value for the "rel" attribute is "describedBy". The link should use the form specified in [RFC7669]; this is expected to change in the future.
The Internet-Draft that was submitted to the RFC Editor to become the published RFC. The value for the "rel" attribute is "convertedFrom". The link should be to an IETF-controlled web site that retains copies of Internet-Drafts.
A representation of the document offered by the document author. The value for the "rel" attribute is "alternate". The link can be to a personally run web site.

In RFC production mode, the prep tool needs to check the values for <link> before an RFC is published. In draft production mode, the prep tool might remove some <link> elements during the draft submission process 🧹

This element appears as a child element of <rfc> (Section 2.45).

Content model: this element does not have any contents.

2.30.1. "href" Attribute (Mandatory)

This is the URI of the external document 🔗

2.30.2. "rel" Attribute

This is the relationship of the external document to this one. The relationships are taken from the "Link Relations" registry maintained by IANA [LINKRELATIONS] 🗃️

2.31. `<middle>` 🧁

Represents the main content of the document, the good stuff 🍰

This element appears as a child element of <rfc> (Section 2.45).

Content model:

One or more <section> elements (Section 2.46)

2.32. <name> ✨

okay so <name> is the name of a section, note, figure, or texttable 🎀 and this name can even say how the flowing text should be marked up, like pulling in references or making some characters use a fixed-width font 💅

<name> lives inside <figure> (Section 2.25), <note> (Section 2.33), <references> (Section 2.42), <section> (Section 2.46), <table> (Section 2.54), and <texttable> (Section 3.8) 🦋

Its content model is totally flexible, in any order:

Text
<cref> elements (Section 2.16)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<relref> elements (Section 2.44)
<tt> elements (Section 2.62)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.33. <note> 🌸

<note> makes an unnumbered, titled block of text that shows up after the Abstract 📝

People usually use it to share extra info with reviewers (Working Group info, the mailing list, and so on) or for publication info like "IESG Notes" 🧚

This element goes inside <front> (Section 2.26) 💜

Its content model is ordered, so:

One optional <name> element (Section 2.32)
In any order, but at least one of:
- <dl> elements (Section 2.20)
- <ol> elements (Section 2.34)
- <t> elements (Section 2.53)
- <ul> elements (Section 2.63)

2.33.1. "removeInRFC" Attribute ⭐

If this is set to "true", the note gets marked in the prep tool with text saying it should be removed before the document is published as an RFC 🙈 That text is This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

Allowed values:

"true"
"false" (default)

2.33.2. "title" Attribute 🥀

This one is deprecated, so just use <name> instead 💅

2.34. <ol> 🔢

<ol> is an ordered list 🍓 The labels on the items are either a number or a letter, depending on the value of the style attribute.

This element goes inside <abstract> (Section 2.1), <aside> (Section 2.6), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <dd> (Section 2.18), <li> (Section 2.29), <note> (Section 2.33), <section> (Section 2.46), <td> (Section 2.56), and <th> (Section 2.58) 🌈

It needs one or more <li> elements (Section 2.29) inside it 🫶

2.34.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔗

This is the document-wide unique identifier for the list ✨

2.34.2. "group" Attribute 👑

When the prep tool sees an <ol> with a "group" attribute it has already seen, it keeps counting the list from wherever the previous list with the same group name stopped 🦋 If an <ol> has both a "group" attribute and a "start" attribute, the group's numbering gets reset to the given start value 🔥

2.34.3. "spacing" Attribute 🫧

This decides whether there's a blank line between entries. spacing="normal" gives you a single blank line, and spacing="compact" gives you no space between them 💖

Allowed values:

"normal" (default)
"compact"

2.34.4. "start" Attribute 🌟

This is the ordinal value where the list starts. It defaults to "1" and must be an integer of 0 or greater 💜

2.34.5. "type" Attribute 🎀

This sets the type of the labels on the list items 💅 If the type value is only 1 character long, it works the same way it does in HTML:

a  Lowercase letters (a, b, c, ...)
A  Uppercase letters (A, B, C, ...)
1  Decimal numbers (1, 2, 3, ...)
i  Lowercase Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, ...)
I  Uppercase Roman numerals (I, II, III, ...)

For "a" and "A", once you get past the 26th entry, the numbering rolls over to "aa"/"AA", then "ab"/"AB", and so on 🦋

If the type value is longer than 1 character, it must contain a percent-encoded indicator and other text 🧚 It's free-form text that lets you drop counter values in with a "percent-letter" format. For example, "[REQ%d]" makes labels like [REQ1], where %d puts in the item number as a decimal number 💖

These formats are supported:

%c Lowercase letters (a, b, c, ...)
%C Uppercase letters (A, B, C, ...)
%d Decimal numbers (1, 2, 3, ...)
%i Lowercase Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, ...)
%I Uppercase Roman numerals (I, II, III, ...)
%% Represents a percent sign

Other formats are reserved for future use 🔮 Only one percent encoding other than "%%" is allowed in a type string 🙅‍♀️

It's an error for the type string to be empty. For bulleted lists, use the <ul> element instead. For lists with neither bullets nor numbers, use the <ul> element with the empty="true" attribute 🥺

If there's no type attribute at all, the default type is the same as type='%d.' ✨

2.35. <organization> 🏢

This specifies the affiliation [RFC7322] of an author 💼

The info shows up in both the "Author's Address" section and on the front page (see [RFC7322] for more information) 📄 If the value is long, you can give an abbreviated version in the "abbrev" attribute ✂️

This element goes inside <author> (Section 2.7) 🫶

Content model: only text content 💬

2.35.1. "abbrev" Attribute ✂️

This is the abbreviated variant 💖

2.35.2. "ascii" Attribute 🔤

This is the ASCII equivalent of the organization's name 🌸

2.36. <phone> 📞

This represents a phone number ☎️

The value is expected to be the scheme-specific part of a "tel" URI, so it doesn't include the "tel:" prefix, and it uses the "global-number-digits" syntax 🦋 See Section 3 of [RFC3966] for the details 💜

This element goes inside <address> (Section 2.2) 🧚

Content model: only text content 💬

2.37. <postal> 📮

<postal> holds optional child elements with postal info ✉️ These get displayed in an order that's specific to each formatter 🌈 A postal address can have either a set of <street>, <city>, <region>, <code>, and <country> elements, or an ordered set of <postalLine> elements, but never both 🙅‍♀️

This element goes inside <address> (Section 2.2) 🎀

Its content model is one of the following:

Either:
- In any order:
  - <city> elements (Section 2.13)
  - <code> elements (Section 2.14)
  - <country> elements (Section 2.15)
  - <region> elements (Section 2.43)
  - <street> elements (Section 2.49)
Or:
- One or more <postalLine> elements (Section 2.38)

2.38. <postalLine> 🏡

This represents one line of a postal address 🌷 If you give more than one <postalLine>, the prep tool emits them in the order you gave them 🔁

This element goes inside <postal> (Section 2.37) 💅

Content model: only text content 💬

2.38.1. "ascii" Attribute 🔤

This is the ASCII equivalent of the text in the address line 💖

2.39. <refcontent> 📚

This is text that should show up between the title and the date of a reference 🥰 The whole point is so you don't have to abuse <seriesInfo> just to get that kind of text in there 🙈

Here's an example:

<reference anchor="April1">
  <front>
    <title>On Being A Fool</title>
    <author initials="K." surname="Phunny" fullname="Knot Phunny"/>
    <date year="2000" month="April"/>
  </front>
  <refcontent>Self-published pamphlet</refcontent>
</reference>

And that would render as:

[April1]     Phunny, K., "On Being A Fool", Self-published
             pamphlet, April 2000.

This element goes inside <reference> (Section 2.40) 🦋

Content model, in any order:

Text
<bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
<em> elements (Section 2.22)
<strong> elements (Section 2.50)
<sub> elements (Section 2.51)
<sup> elements (Section 2.52)
<tt> elements (Section 2.62)

2.40. <reference> 📖

This represents a bibliographic reference 🔖

This element goes inside <referencegroup> (Section 2.41) and <references> (Section 2.42) 🧚

Its content model is ordered:

One <front> element (Section 2.26)
In any order:
- <annotation> elements (Section 2.3)
- <format> elements (Section 3.3)
- <refcontent> elements (Section 2.39)
- <seriesInfo> elements (Section 2.47; deprecated in this context)

2.40.1. "anchor" Attribute (Mandatory) 🔗

This is the document-wide unique identifier for this reference 🌟 Usually it's used both to label the reference in the "References" section and as an identifier in links to this reference entry 💜

2.40.2. "quoteTitle" Attribute 💬

This specifies whether or not the title in the reference should be quoted. You can use it to stop quoting, like for errata 🙃

Allowed values:

"true" (default)
"false"

2.40.3. "target" Attribute 🎯

This holds the URI for the reference 🌐

2.41. <referencegroup> 🗂️

This represents a list of bibliographic references that get shown as a single reference 🦋 It's most often used for STDs and BCPs, where one reference (like "BCP 9") might cover more than one RFC 👑

This element goes inside <references> (Section 2.42) 🌸

Content model: one or more <reference> elements (Section 2.40) 💅

2.41.1. "anchor" Attribute (Mandatory) 🔗

This is the document-wide unique identifier for this reference group ✨ Usually it's used both to label the reference group in the "References" section and as an identifier in links to this reference entry 🫶

2.42. <references> 📚

This contains a set of bibliographic references 💖

Back in the early days of the RFC Series, there was only one "References" section per RFC 🕰️ That got changed later, and references were split into two sets, "Normative" and "Informative", as described in [RFC7322] 🎀 This vocabulary supports that split with the <name> child element 💅 In general, the title should be either "Normative References" or "Informative References" ✨

This element goes inside <back> (Section 2.8) 🧚

Its content model is ordered:

One optional <name> element (Section 2.32)
In any order:
- <reference> elements (Section 2.40)
- <referencegroup> elements (Section 2.41)

2.42.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔗

This is an optional user-supplied identifier for this set of references 🌷

2.42.2. "title" Attribute 🥀

This one's deprecated too, so use <name> instead 💅

2.43. <region> 🗺️

This provides the region name in a postal address 🌍

This element goes inside <postal> (Section 2.37) 💜

Content model: only text content 💬

2.43.1. "ascii" Attribute 🔤

This is the ASCII equivalent of the region name 🫶

2.44. <relref>

Okay bestie, <relref> is basically a link to one specific part of a document, and it lives inside a <reference> element 🔗✨ Formatters that do links (like HTML and PDF) turn it into an external hyperlink pointing at that exact part. They build the link by smooshing together the base URI from the <reference> element and the "relative" attribute from this element. The "target" attribute is required, and it must be the anchor of a <reference> element 💜

The "section" attribute is required, and the "relative" attribute is optional. If the reference is not an RFC or Internet-Draft in the v3 format, the element needs a "relative" attribute. In that case, the "section" attribute's value gets ignored 🙈

Here's an example of <relref> with text content:

See
<relref section="2.3" target="RFC9999" displayFormat="bare">
the protocol overview</relref>
for more information.

And an HTML formatter might generate:

See
<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9999.html#s-2.3">
the protocol overview</a>
for more information.

Heads up, the URL in that example might look different once the RFC Editor deploys the v3 format 🧚

This element shows up as a child of <annotation> (Section 2.3), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <cref> (Section 2.16), <dd> (Section 2.18), <dt> (Section 2.21), <em> (Section 2.22), <li> (Section 2.29), <name> (Section 2.32), <preamble> (Section 3.6), <strong> (Section 2.50), <sub> (Section 2.51), <sup> (Section 2.52), <t> (Section 2.53), <td> (Section 2.56), <th> (Section 2.58), and <tt> (Section 2.62).

Content model: only text content.

2.44.1. "displayFormat" Attribute

This attribute tells formatters how the relative reference should be displayed. Formatters for document types with linking capability should wrap each part of the displayed text in hyperlinks. If there's content in the <relref> element, formatters ignore this attribute's value 🎀

"of"

A formatter should display the relative reference as the word "Section" followed by a space, the contents of the "section" attribute followed by a space, the word "of", another space, and the value from the "target" attribute enclosed in square brackets.

For example, with an input of:

See
<relref section="2.3" target="RFC9999" displayFormat="of"/>
for an overview.

An HTML formatter might generate:

See
<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9999#s-2.3">
Section 2.3</a> of
[<a href="#RFC9999">RFC9999</a>]
for an overview.

Note that "displayFormat='of'" is the default for <relref>, so you don't need to include it in a <relref> element if that's the format you want 💅

"comma"

A formatter should display the relative reference as the value from the "target" attribute enclosed in square brackets, a comma, a space, the word "Section" followed by a space, and the "section" attribute.

For example, with an input of:

See
<relref section="2.3" target="RFC9999" displayFormat="comma"/>,
for an overview.

An HTML formatter might generate:

See
[<a href="#RFC9999">RFC9999</a>],
<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9999#s-2.3">
Section 2.3</a>, for an overview.

"parens"

A formatter should display the relative reference as the value from the "target" attribute enclosed in square brackets, a space, a left parenthesis, the word "Section" followed by a space, the "section" attribute, and a right parenthesis.

For example, with an input of:

See
<relref section="2.3" target="RFC9999" displayFormat="parens"/>
for an overview.

An HTML formatter might generate:

See
[<a href="#RFC9999">RFC9999</a>]
(<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9999#s-2.3">
Section 2.3</a>)
for an overview.

"bare"

A formatter should display the relative reference as the contents of the "section" attribute and nothing else. This is handy when you've got multiple relative references pointing at one base reference 🦋

For example:

See Sections
<relref section="2.3" target="RFC9999" displayFormat="bare"/>
and
<relref section="2.4" target="RFC9999" displayFormat="of"/>
for an overview.

An HTML formatter might generate:

See Sections
<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9999#s-2.3">
2.3</a>
and
<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9999#s-2.4">
Section 2.4</a> of
[<a href="#RFC9999">RFC9999</a>]
for an overview.

Allowed values:

"of" (default)
"comma"
"parens"
"bare"

2.44.2. "relative" Attribute

This specifies a relative reference from the URI in the target reference. The value has to include whatever leading character is needed to create the relative reference. Usually that's "#" for HTML documents 🌸

2.44.3. "section" Attribute (Mandatory)

This specifies a section of the target reference. If the reference is not an RFC or Internet-Draft in the v3 format, it's an error 💀

2.44.4. "target" Attribute (Mandatory)

This is the anchor of the reference for this element. If this value isn't an anchor to a <reference> or <referencegroup> element, it's an error. If the reference at the target has no URI, that's also an error.

2.45. <rfc>

This is the root element of the xml2rfc vocabulary 👑

Content model:

In this order:

Optional <link> elements (Section 2.30)
One <front> element (Section 2.26)
One <middle> element (Section 2.31)
One optional <back> element (Section 2.8)

2.45.1. "category" Attribute

Deprecated! Instead, use the "name" attribute in <seriesInfo>.

2.45.2. "consensus" Attribute

This affects the generated boilerplate. The values "no" and "yes" are deprecated and get replaced by "false" (the default) and "true" ✨

See [RFC7841] for more information.

Allowed values:

"no"
"yes"
"false" (default)
"true"

2.45.3. "docName" Attribute

Deprecated! Instead, use the "value" attribute in <seriesInfo>.

2.45.4. "indexInclude" Attribute

This specifies whether or not a formatter is requested to include an index in generated files. If the source file has no <iref> elements, an index is never generated. This option is useful when the source document has <iref> elements but the author doesn't want an index anymore 📚

Allowed values:

"true" (default)
"false"

2.45.5. "ipr" Attribute

This represents the Intellectual Property status of the document. See Appendix A.1 for details 🎀

2.45.6. "iprExtract" Attribute

This identifies a single section within the document for which extraction "as is" is explicitly allowed. It's only relevant for historic values of the "ipr" attribute.

2.45.7. "number" Attribute

Deprecated! Instead, use the "value" attribute in <seriesInfo>.

2.45.8. "obsoletes" Attribute

This is a comma-separated list of RFC numbers or Internet-Draft names.

The prep tool will parse the attribute value so that incorrect references can be detected 🔍

2.45.9. "prepTime" Attribute

This is the date that the XML was processed by a prep tool. It's included in the XML file just before it's saved to disk. The value is formatted using the "date-time" format defined in Section 5.6 of [RFC3339]. The "time-offset" should be "Z" 🕐

2.45.10. "seriesNo" Attribute

Deprecated! Instead, use the "value" attribute in <seriesInfo>.

2.45.11. "sortRefs" Attribute

This specifies whether or not the prep tool will sort the references in each reference section.

Allowed values:

"true"
"false" (default)

2.45.12. "submissionType" Attribute

This is the document stream, as described in [RFC7841]. (The RFC Series Editor may change the list of allowed values in the future 🌈)

Allowed values:

"IETF" (default)
"IAB"
"IRTF"
"independent"

2.45.13. "symRefs" Attribute

This specifies whether or not a formatter is requested to use symbolic references, like "[RFC2119]". If the value is "false", the references come out as numbers, like "[3]" 🔢

Allowed values:

"true" (default)
"false"

2.45.14. "tocDepth" Attribute

This specifies the number of levels of headings that a formatter is requested to include in the table of contents. The default is "3".

2.45.15. "tocInclude" Attribute

This specifies whether or not a formatter is requested to include a table of contents in generated files.

Allowed values:

"true" (default)
"false"

2.45.16. "updates" Attribute

This is a comma-separated list of RFC numbers or Internet-Draft names.

The prep tool will parse the attribute value so that incorrect references can be detected 💅

2.45.17. "version" Attribute

This specifies the version of xml2rfc syntax used in this document. The only expected value (for now) is "3" 🫶

2.46. <section>

This represents a section (when it's inside a <middle> element) or an appendix (when it's inside a <back> element) 🍓

Subsections are made by nesting <section> elements inside <section> elements. Sections are allowed to be empty.

This element appears as a child of <back> (Section 2.8), <boilerplate> (Section 2.11), <middle> (Section 2.31), and <section> (Section 2.46).

Content model:

In this order:

One optional <name> element (Section 2.32)
In any order:
- <artwork> elements (Section 2.5)
- <aside> elements (Section 2.6)
- <blockquote> elements (Section 2.10)
- <dl> elements (Section 2.20)
- <figure> elements (Section 2.25)
- <iref> elements (Section 2.27)
- <ol> elements (Section 2.34)
- <sourcecode> elements (Section 2.48)
- <t> elements (Section 2.53)
- <table> elements (Section 2.54)
- <texttable> elements (Section 3.8)
- <ul> elements (Section 2.63)
Optional <section> elements (Section 2.46)

2.46.1. "anchor" Attribute

This is a document-wide unique identifier for this section 🔑

2.46.2. "numbered" Attribute

If set to "false", the formatter is requested to not display a section number. The prep tool will verify that such a section isn't followed by a numbered section in this part of the document, and it'll verify that the section is a top-level section 🙅‍♀️

Allowed values:

"true" (default)
"false"

2.46.3. "removeInRFC" Attribute

If set to "true", this note gets marked in the prep tool with text saying it should be removed before the document is published as an RFC. That text will be "This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC."

Allowed values:

"true"
"false" (default)

2.46.4. "title" Attribute

Deprecated. Use <name> instead 🌸

2.46.5. "toc" Attribute

Okay so this one is the bouncer for the table of contents 🎀. It tells a formatter whether this section gets to show up in the TOC, if a TOC is being made at all 💅. It only takes effect if the section's level would have shown up based on the tocDepth attribute of the <rfc> element, and obviously only if the TOC is being built from the tocInclude attribute of the <rfc> element 🌸. If you set it to exclude, every section underneath this one gets kicked out too 😭. The default value means the section is included if tocDepth says it should be 🦋.

Allowed values:

include
exclude
default (default)

2.47. <seriesInfo>

This element says which document series your doc belongs to, plus its ID inside that series 📚✨.

A processing tool figures out whether it's looking at an RFC or an Internet-Draft by checking the name attribute of a <seriesInfo> element inside the <front> element inside the <rfc> element. It's looking for "RFC" or "Internet-Draft" 🔍. (If you specify neither value in any of the <seriesInfo> elements, that can still be useful for making other kinds of documents, but it's out of scope for this spec 🙈.)

It's invalid to have multiple <seriesInfo> elements inside the same <front> element with the same name value 💀. Some combos just don't make sense, like having both <seriesInfo name="rfc"/> and <seriesInfo name="Internet-Draft"/> in the same <front> element. Absolutely not 🙅‍♀️.

This element shows up as a child of <front> (Section 2.26) and <reference> (Section 2.40; deprecated in this context) 🧚.

Content model: this element does not have any contents.

2.47.1. "asciiName" Attribute

The ASCII version of the name field 🎀.

2.47.2. "asciiValue" Attribute

The ASCII version of the value field 🌈.

2.47.3. "name" Attribute (Mandatory)

This is the name of the series. The currently known values are "RFC", "Internet-Draft", and "DOI". The RFC Series Editor might change this list later 👑.

Some of the name values interact with each other like this:

If a <front> element has a <seriesInfo> element with a name of "Internet-Draft", it can also have at most one extra <seriesInfo> element with a status attribute set to "standard", "full-standard", "bcp", "fyi", "informational", "experimental", or "historic". That tells you the intended status of this Internet-Draft, if it ever gets published as an RFC 🔥. If that extra element has one of those statuses, its name needs to be "".
If a <front> element has a <seriesInfo> element with a name of "RFC", it can also have at most one extra <seriesInfo> element with a status attribute set to "full-standard", "bcp", or "fyi", which shows the current status of this RFC ✨. If that extra element has one of those statuses, the value attribute for that name needs to be the number within that series. That <front> element might also contain another <seriesInfo> element with a status of "info", "exp", or "historic" and a name of "" to show the RFC's status 🦋.
A <front> element that has a <seriesInfo> element named "Internet-Draft" can't also have one named "RFC" 🙅‍♀️. Pick a lane, bestie.
The <seriesInfo> element can contain the DOI for the referenced document 🌸. You can't use this when the <seriesInfo> is somewhere underneath an <rfc> element, only under a <reference> element. The value attribute should use the form specified in [RFC7669] ✨.

2.47.4. "status" Attribute

This is the status of the document. The currently known values are "standard", "informational", "experimental", "bcp", "fyi", and "full-standard". The RFC Series Editor might change this list in the future 💜.

2.47.5. "stream" Attribute

This is the stream (as described in [RFC7841]) that started the document 🌊. (The RFC Series Editor might change this list later too 🫶.)

Allowed values:

"IETF" (default)
"IAB"
"IRTF"
"independent"

2.47.6. "value" Attribute (Mandatory)

This is the identifier inside the series that the name attribute points to 🎯.

For BCPs, FYIs, RFCs, and STDs, it's the number within the series 🔢. For Internet-Drafts, it's the full draft name, ending with the two-digit version number 🧁. For DOIs, the value is given like "10.17487/rfc1149", as described in [RFC7669] 🌷.

The name in the value should be the document name with no file extension 🙈. For Internet-Drafts, the value should be "draft-ietf-somewg-someprotocol-07", not "draft-ietf-somewg-someprotocol-07.txt". Main character energy would be remembering the ".txt" isn't invited 💅.

2.48. <sourcecode>

This element lets you put source code right into the document 💻✨.

When it's rendered, source code is always shown in a monospace font 🎀. When <sourcecode> is a child of <figure> or <section>, you get full control over horizontal whitespace and line breaks 🙌. When it's formatted, it's indented relative to the left margin of the element around it 🍓. That makes it super useful for source code and formal languages, like ABNF [RFC5234] or the RNC notation used in this document 📜. (When <sourcecode> is a child of other elements, it flows with the text around it 🌈.) Tab characters (U+0009) are prohibited inside this element, so don't even try 🚫.

For artwork like character-based art and diagrams of message layouts, use the <artwork> element instead 🎨.

Output formatters that do pagination should try to keep source code on one page 📄. This stops source code that gets split across pages from looking like two separate pieces of code 😭.

Check Section 5 for how to handle using & and < characters in source code 🫶.

This element shows up as a child of <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <dd> (Section 2.18), <figure> (Section 2.25), <li> (Section 2.29), <section> (Section 2.46), <td> (Section 2.56), and <th> (Section 2.58) 🧚.

Content model: only text content.

2.48.1. "anchor" Attribute

This is the document-wide unique identifier for this source code 🔑.

2.48.2. "name" Attribute

This is a filename that fits the contents, like for pulling the code out into a local file 📁. It's helpful for other kinds of tools too, like automated syntax checkers, which work by extracting the source code 🤓. The name attribute doesn't need to be unique for <artwork> elements in a document. If multiple <sourcecode> elements have the same name attribute, a formatter might assume they're all fragments of one file, and it can collect those fragments for later processing 🧩.

2.48.3. "src" Attribute

This is the URI reference of a source file [RFC3986] 🔗.

It's an error to have both a src attribute and content in the <sourcecode> element 🚨. Pick one, periodt.

2.48.4. "type" Attribute

This specifies the type of the source code 🏷️. The value is free text, with certain values marked as preferred.

The preferred values for <sourcecode> types are:

abnf
asn.1
bash
c++
c
cbor
dtd
java
javascript
json
mib
perl
pseudocode
python
rnc
xml
yang

The RFC Series Editor keeps a complete list of the preferred values on the RFC Editor web site, and that list is expected to get updated over time 🌸. So a consumer of v3 XML shouldn't crash when it runs into an unexpected type, or when no type is specified at all 🫶. Chill, it's fine.

2.49. <street>

This element gives you a street address 🏡.

This element shows up as a child of <postal> (Section 2.37) 📮.

Content model: only text content.

2.49.1. "ascii" Attribute

The ASCII version of the street address 🌷.

2.50. <strong>

This element marks text as semantically strong 💪. Anything inside it gets displayed in bold once it's processed 🖤. You can mix it with other character formatting elements, and the formatting just stacks up ✨.

This element shows up as a child of <annotation> (Section 2.3), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <cref> (Section 2.16), <dd> (Section 2.18), <dt> (Section 2.21), <em> (Section 2.22), <li> (Section 2.29), <preamble> (Section 3.6), <refcontent> (Section 2.39), <sub> (Section 2.51), <sup> (Section 2.52), <t> (Section 2.53), <td> (Section 2.56), <th> (Section 2.58), and <tt> (Section 2.62) 🎀.

Content model:

In any order:

Text
<bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
<cref> elements (Section 2.16)
<em> elements (Section 2.22)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<iref> elements (Section 2.27)
<relref> elements (Section 2.44)
<sub> elements (Section 2.51)
<sup> elements (Section 2.52)
<tt> elements (Section 2.62)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.51. <sub>

This makes the text show up as subscript, about half a letter-height lower than normal text 👇🦋. You can combine it with other character formatting elements, and the formatting stacks up 💖.

This element shows up as a child of <annotation> (Section 2.3), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <cref> (Section 2.16), <dd> (Section 2.18), <dt> (Section 2.21), <em> (Section 2.22), <li> (Section 2.29), <preamble> (Section 3.6), <refcontent> (Section 2.39), <strong> (Section 2.50), <t> (Section 2.53), <td> (Section 2.56), <th> (Section 2.58), and <tt> (Section 2.62) 🧚.

Content model:

In any order:

Text
<bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
<cref> elements (Section 2.16)
<em> elements (Section 2.22)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<iref> elements (Section 2.27)
<relref> elements (Section 2.44)
<strong> elements (Section 2.50)
<tt> elements (Section 2.62)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.52. <sup>

This makes the text show up as superscript, about half a letter-height higher than normal text 👆🌟. Same deal as subscript: you can combine it with other character formatting elements, and the formatting stacks 🫶.

This element shows up as a child of <annotation> (Section 2.3), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <cref> (Section 2.16), <dd> (Section 2.18), <dt> (Section 2.21), <em> (Section 2.22), <li> (Section 2.29), <preamble> (Section 3.6), <refcontent> (Section 2.39), <strong> (Section 2.50), <t> (Section 2.53), <td> (Section 2.56), <th> (Section 2.58), and <tt> (Section 2.62) 🎀.

Content model:

In any order:

Text
<bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
<cref> elements (Section 2.16)
<em> elements (Section 2.22)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<iref> elements (Section 2.27)
<relref> elements (Section 2.44)
<strong> elements (Section 2.50)
<tt> elements (Section 2.62)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.53. `<t>` ✨

Contains a paragraph of text. 💖

This element shows up as a child of <abstract> (Section 2.1), <aside> (Section 2.6), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <dd> (Section 2.18), <li> (Section 2.29), <list> (Section 3.4), <note> (Section 2.33), <section> (Section 2.46), <td> (Section 2.56), and <th> (Section 2.58). 🎀

Content model:

In any order:

Text
<bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
<cref> elements (Section 2.16)
<em> elements (Section 2.22)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<iref> elements (Section 2.27)
<list> elements (Section 3.4)
<relref> elements (Section 2.44)
<spanx> elements (Section 3.7)
<strong> elements (Section 2.50)
<sub> elements (Section 2.51)
<sup> elements (Section 2.52)
<tt> elements (Section 2.62)
<vspace> elements (Section 3.10)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.53.1. "anchor" Attribute 🦋

Document-wide unique identifier for this paragraph. Every paragraph gets its own name tag, bestie. 🏷️

2.53.2. "hangText" Attribute 🙈

Deprecated. Instead, use <dd> inside of a definition list (<dl>). So don't use this one anymore, okay?

2.53.3. "keepWithNext" Attribute 🌸

This is a hint for the output formatters that handle pagination. They'll make a best-effort try to keep the paragraph on the same page as the next element, whatever that happens to be. 📄 For example, the HTML output @media print CSS ("CSS" refers to Cascading Style Sheets) might turn this into page-break-after: avoid. For PDF, the paginator could try to keep the paragraph with the next element. Note: this attribute is strictly a hint and not always actionable. It's a suggestion, not a promise, so don't get too attached to it. 😭

Allowed values:

"false" (default)
"true"

2.53.4. "keepWithPrevious" Attribute 🧚

This is a hint for the output formatters that handle pagination, too. They'll make a best-effort try to keep the paragraph with the previous element, whatever that happens to be. For example, the HTML output @media print CSS might turn this into page-break-before: avoid. For PDF, the paginator could try to keep the paragraph with the previous element. Note: this attribute is strictly a hint and not always actionable. Same energy as the last one: it's a hint, not a rule. 💅

Allowed values:

"false" (default)
"true"

2.54. `<table>` 🍓

Contains a table with a caption that has the table number. If the element contains a <name> element, the caption will also show that name. Iconic. 📊

Inside the <table> element there is, optionally, a <thead> element to hold the rows that will be the table's heading, and, optionally, a <tfoot> element to hold the rows of the table's footer. If the XML gets converted to something with page breaks (like PDFs or printed HTML), the header and footer are meant to show up on each page. 📑✨

This element shows up as a child of <aside> (Section 2.6) and <section> (Section 2.46). 🎀

Content model:

In this order:

One optional <name> element (Section 2.32)
Optional <iref> elements (Section 2.27)
One optional <thead> element (Section 2.59)
One or more <tbody> elements (Section 2.55)
One optional <tfoot> element (Section 2.57)

2.54.1. "anchor" Attribute 🦋

Document-wide unique identifier for this table. One name per table, no copycats! 💜

2.55. `<tbody>` 🌈

A container for a set of body rows for a table. The main body of the table, it's giving substance. 🫶

This element shows up as a child of <table> (Section 2.54).

Content model:

One or more <tr> elements (Section 2.61)

2.55.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔥

Document-wide unique identifier for the tbody.

2.56. `<td>` 💅

A cell in a table row. 🌸

This element shows up as a child of <tr> (Section 2.61).

Content model:

Either:
- In any order, but at least one of:
  - <artwork> elements (Section 2.5)
  - <dl> elements (Section 2.20)
  - <figure> elements (Section 2.25)
  - <ol> elements (Section 2.34)
  - <sourcecode> elements (Section 2.48)
  - <t> elements (Section 2.53)
  - <ul> elements (Section 2.63)
Or:
- In any order:
  - Text
  - <bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
  - <br> elements (Section 2.12)
  - <cref> elements (Section 2.16)
  - <em> elements (Section 2.22)
  - <eref> elements (Section 2.24)
  - <iref> elements (Section 2.27)
  - <relref> elements (Section 2.44)
  - <strong> elements (Section 2.50)
  - <sub> elements (Section 2.51)
  - <sup> elements (Section 2.52)
  - <tt> elements (Section 2.62)
  - <xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.56.1. "align" Attribute ✨

Controls whether the content of the cell appears left justified (default), centered, or right justified. Heads up, though: "center" or "right" will probably only work well in cells with plain text. Anything else might make the contents render badly. 🙈

Allowed values:

"left" (default)
"center"
"right"

2.56.2. "anchor" Attribute 🦋

Document-wide unique identifier for the cell.

2.56.3. "colspan" Attribute 💖

The number of columns that the cell is to span. For example, setting colspan='3' means the cell takes up the same horizontal space as three cells in a row that don't have any colspan attributes. Main character width. 👑

2.56.4. "rowspan" Attribute 🎀

The number of rows that the cell is to span. For example, setting rowspan='3' means the cell takes up the same vertical space as three rows. Tall and iconic. 🧚

2.57. `<tfoot>` 🫶

A container for a set of footer rows for a table. The closing act. 🎬

This element shows up as a child of <table> (Section 2.54).

Content model:

One or more <tr> elements (Section 2.61)

2.57.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔥

Document-wide unique identifier for the tfoot.

2.58. `<th>` 👑

A cell in a table row. When it gets rendered, it normally comes out in boldface. Other than that, there is no difference between this and the <td> element. Basically <td> with a bold moment. 💅

This element shows up as a child of <tr> (Section 2.61).

Content model:

Either:
- In any order, but at least one of:
  - <artwork> elements (Section 2.5)
  - <dl> elements (Section 2.20)
  - <figure> elements (Section 2.25)
  - <ol> elements (Section 2.34)
  - <sourcecode> elements (Section 2.48)
  - <t> elements (Section 2.53)
  - <ul> elements (Section 2.63)
Or:
- In any order:
  - Text
  - <bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
  - <br> elements (Section 2.12)
  - <cref> elements (Section 2.16)
  - <em> elements (Section 2.22)
  - <eref> elements (Section 2.24)
  - <iref> elements (Section 2.27)
  - <relref> elements (Section 2.44)
  - <strong> elements (Section 2.50)
  - <sub> elements (Section 2.51)
  - <sup> elements (Section 2.52)
  - <tt> elements (Section 2.62)
  - <xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.58.1. "align" Attribute ✨

Controls whether the content of the cell appears left justified (default), centered, or right justified. Note that "center" or "right" will probably only work well in cells with plain text. Any other elements might make the contents render badly. Same tea as before, bestie. ☕

Allowed values:

"left" (default)
"center"
"right"

2.58.2. "anchor" Attribute 🦋

Document-wide unique identifier for the row. (Yes, the spec really says "row" here, even though it's the cell section. Sus, but we respect it. 🤷‍♀️)

2.58.3. "colspan" Attribute 💖

2.58.4. "rowspan" Attribute 🎀

The number of rows that the cell is to span. For example, setting rowspan='3' means the cell takes up the same vertical space as three rows. 🧚

2.59. `<thead>` 🌸

A container for a set of header rows for a table. The intro era. 🎀

This element shows up as a child of <table> (Section 2.54).

Content model:

One or more <tr> elements (Section 2.61)

2.59.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔥

Document-wide unique identifier for the thead.

2.60. `<title>` 📜

Represents the document title. ✨

When this element shows up in the <front> element of the current document, the title might also appear in page headers or footers. If it's long (about 40 characters or more), the "abbrev" attribute can be used to specify a shortened version. Shorter is slay. 🙌

This element shows up as a child of <front> (Section 2.26).

Content model: only text content.

2.60.1. "abbrev" Attribute ✂️

Specifies an abbreviated variant of the document title. Short and sweet. 🍬

2.60.2. "ascii" Attribute 🔤

The ASCII equivalent of the title. For when you need the plain-text version. 🧾

2.61. `<tr>` 🦋

A row of a table. Lowkey the backbone of every table. 🪜

This element shows up as a child of <tbody> (Section 2.55), <tfoot> (Section 2.57), and <thead> (Section 2.59).

Content model:

In any order, but at least one of:

<td> elements (Section 2.56)
<th> elements (Section 2.58)

2.61.1. "anchor" Attribute 🦋

Document-wide unique identifier for the row.

2.62. `<tt>` 💻

Causes the text to show up in a constant-width font. This element can be combined with other character formatting elements, and the formatting will stack up additively. Stacking styles is so iconic. 🥞✨

This element shows up as a child of <annotation> (Section 2.3), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <cref> (Section 2.16), <dd> (Section 2.18), <dt> (Section 2.21), <em> (Section 2.22), <li> (Section 2.29), <name> (Section 2.32), <preamble> (Section 3.6), <refcontent> (Section 2.39), <strong> (Section 2.50), <sub> (Section 2.51), <sup> (Section 2.52), <t> (Section 2.53), <td> (Section 2.56), and <th> (Section 2.58). 🫧

Content model:

In any order:

Text
<bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
<cref> elements (Section 2.16)
<em> elements (Section 2.22)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<iref> elements (Section 2.27)
<relref> elements (Section 2.44)
<strong> elements (Section 2.50)
<sub> elements (Section 2.51)
<sup> elements (Section 2.52)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

2.63. `<ul>` 🎀

An unordered list. The labels on the items are symbols picked by the formatter, so the bullets are a surprise. 🎁

This element shows up as a child of <abstract> (Section 2.1), <aside> (Section 2.6), <blockquote> (Section 2.10), <dd> (Section 2.18), <li> (Section 2.29), <note> (Section 2.33), <section> (Section 2.46), <td> (Section 2.56), and <th> (Section 2.58). 🌷

Content model:

One or more <li> elements (Section 2.29)

2.63.1. "anchor" Attribute 🦋

Document-wide unique identifier for the list.

2.63.2. "empty" Attribute 🫥

Defines whether or not the label is empty. empty="true" means that no label will be shown. Minimalist era. 🤍

Allowed values:

"false" (default)
"true"

2.63.3. "spacing" Attribute 📏

Defines whether or not there is a blank line between entries. spacing="normal" means a single blank line, while spacing="compact" means no space between. Choose your vibe. 🌊

Allowed values:

"normal" (default)
"compact"

2.64. `<uri>` 🔗

Contains a web address associated with the author. 🌐

The contents should be a valid URI. This will most likely be an "http:" or "https:" URI. 🔒

This element shows up as a child of <address> (Section 2.2).

Content model: only text content.

2.65. `<workgroup>` 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

This element is used to specify the Working Group (IETF) or Research Group (IRTF) that the document comes from, if there is one. The recommended format is the official name of the Working Group, with some capitalization. Official name, big energy. 💼

In Internet-Drafts, this goes in the upper left corner of the boilerplate, where it replaces the "Network Working Group" string. Formatting software can add the words "Working Group" or "Research Group" on the end, depending on the "submissionType" property of the <rfc> element (Section 2.45.12). 📝✨

This element shows up as a child of <front> (Section 2.26).

Content model: only text content.

2.66. <xref> 🦋

Okay bestie, <xref> is basically a reference to an anchor somewhere in this document 🔗 Formatters that have links (like HTML and PDF) are likely to turn <xref> elements into internal hyperlinks ✨ It's giving "jump right to that part" energy. It's super useful for pointing at things in the "References" section, specific sections of this doc, specific figures, and so on 💅 The "target" attribute is required 💜

Content model: only text content.

2.66.1. "format" Attribute

This attribute tells formatters what the desired format of the reference should be 🎀 Formatters for document types that have linking capability should wrap the displayed text in hyperlinks 🔗

"counter"

The "derivedContent" attribute will contain just a counter. This is used for targets that are <section>, <figure>, <table>, or items in an ordered list. Using format='counter' where the target is any other type of element is an error 🙈

For example, with an input of:

<section anchor="overview">Protocol Overview</section>
. . .
See Section <xref target="overview" format="counter"/>
for an overview.

An HTML formatter might generate:

See Section <a href="#overview">1.7</a> for an overview.

"default"

If the element has no content, the "derivedContent" attribute will contain a text fragment that describes the referenced part completely, such as "XML" for a target that is a <reference>, or "Section 2" or "Table 4" for a target to a non-reference. (If the element has content, the "derivedContent" attribute is filled with the content.)

For example, with an input of:

<section anchor="overview">Protocol Overview</section>
. . .
See <xref target="overview"/> for an overview.

An HTML formatter might generate:

See <a href="#overview">Section 1.7</a> for an overview.

"none"

Deprecated 💀

"title"

If the target is a <reference> element, the "derivedContent" attribute will contain the name of the reference, extracted from the <title> child of the <front> child of the reference. Or, if the target element has a <name> child element, the "derivedContent" attribute will contain the text content of that <name> element concatenated with the text content of each descendant node of <name> (that is, stripping out all of the XML markup, leaving only the text). Or, if the target element does not contain a <name> child element, the "derivedContent" attribute will contain the name of the "anchor" attribute of that element with no other adornment ✨

Allowed values:

"default" (default)
"title"
"counter"
"none"

2.66.2. "pageno" Attribute

Deprecated 😭

Allowed values:

"true"
"false" (default)

2.66.3. "target" Attribute (Mandatory)

Identifies the document component being referenced 🧚 The value needs to match the value of the "anchor" attribute of an element in the document; otherwise, it is an error ⚠️

3. Elements from v2 That Have Been Deprecated 🕰️

This section lists the elements from v2 that have been deprecated. Note that some elements in v3 have attributes from v2 that are deprecated; those are not listed here 👑

3.1. <c>

Deprecated. Instead, use <tr>, <td>, and <th>.

This element appears as a child element of <texttable> (Section 3.8).

Content model:

In any order:

Text
<bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
<cref> elements (Section 2.16)
<em> elements (Section 2.22)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<iref> elements (Section 2.27)
<spanx> elements (Section 3.7)
<strong> elements (Section 2.50)
<sub> elements (Section 2.51)
<sup> elements (Section 2.52)
<tt> elements (Section 2.62)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

3.2. <facsimile>

Deprecated. The <email> element is a much more useful way to get in touch with authors 📧

This element appears as a child element of <address> (Section 2.2).

Content model: only text content.

3.3. <format>

Deprecated. If the goal is to provide a single URI for a reference, use the "target" attribute in <reference> instead 🔗

This element appears as a child element of <reference> (Section 2.40).

Content model: this element does not have any contents.

3.3.1. "octets" Attribute

Deprecated.

3.3.2. "target" Attribute

Deprecated.

3.3.3. "type" Attribute (Mandatory)

Deprecated.

3.4. <list>

Deprecated. Instead, use <dl> for list/@style "hanging"; <ul> for list/@style "empty" or "symbols"; and <ol> for list/@style "letters", "numbers", "counter", or "format" 🌈

This element appears as a child element of <t> (Section 2.53).

Content model:

One or more <t> elements (Section 2.53)

3.4.1. "counter" Attribute

Deprecated. The functionality of this attribute has been replaced with <ol>/@start.

3.4.2. "hangIndent" Attribute

Deprecated. Use <dl> instead.

3.4.3. "style" Attribute

Deprecated.

3.5. <postamble>

Deprecated. Instead, use a regular paragraph after the figure or table 🍓

This element appears as a child element of <figure> (Section 2.25) and <texttable> (Section 3.8).

Content model:

In any order:

Text
<bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
<cref> elements (Section 2.16)
<em> elements (Section 2.22)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<iref> elements (Section 2.27)
<spanx> elements (Section 3.7)
<strong> elements (Section 2.50)
<sub> elements (Section 2.51)
<sup> elements (Section 2.52)
<tt> elements (Section 2.62)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

3.6. <preamble>

Deprecated. Instead, use a regular paragraph before the figure or table 🌸

This element appears as a child element of <figure> (Section 2.25) and <texttable> (Section 3.8).

Content model:

In any order:

Text
<bcp14> elements (Section 2.9)
<cref> elements (Section 2.16)
<em> elements (Section 2.22)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<iref> elements (Section 2.27)
<spanx> elements (Section 3.7)
<strong> elements (Section 2.50)
<sub> elements (Section 2.51)
<sup> elements (Section 2.52)
<tt> elements (Section 2.62)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

3.7. <spanx>

Deprecated 🫠

This element appears as a child element of <annotation> (Section 2.3), <c> (Section 3.1), <postamble> (Section 3.5), <preamble> (Section 3.6), and <t> (Section 2.53).

Content model: only text content.

3.7.1. "style" Attribute

Deprecated. Instead of <spanx style="emph">, use <em>; instead of <spanx style="strong">, use <strong>; instead of <spanx style="verb">, use <tt> 💅

3.7.2. "xml:space" Attribute

Deprecated.

Allowed values:

"default"
"preserve" (default)

3.8. <texttable>

Deprecated. Use <table> instead 🦋

This element appears as a child element of <aside> (Section 2.6) and <section> (Section 2.46).

Content model:

In this order:

One optional <name> element (Section 2.32)
One optional <preamble> element (Section 3.6)
One or more <ttcol> elements (Section 3.9)
Optional <c> elements (Section 3.1)
One optional <postamble> element (Section 3.5)

3.8.1. "align" Attribute

Deprecated.

Allowed values:

"left"
"center" (default)
"right"

3.8.2. "anchor" Attribute

Deprecated.

3.8.3. "style" Attribute

Deprecated.

3.8.4. "suppress-title" Attribute

Deprecated.

Allowed values:

"true"
"false" (default)

3.8.5. "title" Attribute

Deprecated.

3.9. <ttcol>

Deprecated. Instead, use <tr>, <td>, and <th> 🌷

This element appears as a child element of <texttable> (Section 3.8).

Content model:

In any order:

Text
<cref> elements (Section 2.16)
<eref> elements (Section 2.24)
<iref> elements (Section 2.27)
<xref> elements (Section 2.66)

3.9.1. "align" Attribute

Deprecated.

Allowed values:

"left" (default)
"center"
"right"

3.9.2. "width" Attribute

Deprecated.

3.10. <vspace>

Deprecated. In earlier versions of this format, <vspace> was often used to get an extra blank line in a list element; in the v3 vocabulary, that can be done instead by using multiple <t> elements inside the <li> element. Other uses have no direct replacement 🧹

This element appears as a child element of <t> (Section 2.53).

Content model: this element does not have any contents.

3.10.1. "blankLines" Attribute

Deprecated.

4. SVG 🎨

The discussion of the use of SVG can be found in [RFC7996]. This element is part of the namespace "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" 🌈

5. Use of CDATA Structures and Escaping 🙅‍♀️

A common problem authors have with <artwork> and <sourcecode> elements is that the XML processor returns errors if the text in the artwork contains either the "&" or "<" character, or the string "]]>". To avoid these problems, the "&" and "<" characters may be escaped using the strings "&" and "<", respectively; the "]]>" string can be represented as "]]>". Alternatively, they may be surrounded in a CDATA structure: "<![CDATA[]]>". For example:

Desired output:

allowed-chars = "." | "," | "&" | "<" | ">" | "|"

Using escaping:

<sourcecode>
   allowed-chars = "." | "," | "&amp;" | "&lt;" | "&gt;" | "|"
</sourcecode>

Using CDATA:

<sourcecode>
<![CDATA[   allowed-chars = "." | "," | "&" | "<" | ">" | "|"]]>
</sourcecode>

Using CDATA is not a panacea, but it does help prevent having to use escapes in places where using escapes can cause other problems, such as difficulty of inclusion from other documents 🧠

6. Internationalization Considerations 🌍

This format is based on [XML] and thus does not have any issues representing arbitrary Unicode [UNICODE] characters in text content. The RFC Series Editor may restrict some of the characters that can be used in a particular RFC; the rules for such restrictions are covered in [RFC7997] ✨

7. Security Considerations 🔒✨

okay bestie, this part is serious but make it make sense 💅 The "name" attribute of the <artwork> element (Section 2.5.5) can be used to derive a filename for saving to a local file system. Trusting this kind of info without pre-processing is a known security risk, so see Section 4.3 of [RFC6266] for more tea 🍵

The "src" attribute of the <artwork> element can be used to read files from the local system. Processing tools MUST be careful to not accept dangerous values for the filename, particularly those that contain absolute references outside the current directory. 🚨 no cap, this one is a big deal 😭

The "type" attribute of the <artwork> and <sourcecode> elements is meant to encourage formatters to automatically extract known types of content from an RFC or Internet-Draft. While extraction is probably safe, those tools might also think they could further process the extracted content, like rendering artwork or executing code. Doing that without first sanity-checking the extracted content is clearly a terrible idea from a security perspective 💀 More generally, a tool that is reading XML input needs to be suspicious of any content that it intends to post-process 🙈

When there is an external reference to a URL, a processor or renderer SHOULD fetch the content into a sandbox and SHOULD have only a localized impact on the document processing and rendering. Sandbox it, bestie 🧚

All security considerations related to XML processing are relevant as well (see Section 7 of [RFC3470]) 🫶

8. IANA Considerations 🌈

8.1. Internet Media Type Registration 🎀

IANA maintains the registry of Internet Media Types [RFC6838] at https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types. 💖

This document updates the specification for the Internet Media Type "application/rfc+xml" from the one in [RFC7749]. The following has been registered with IANA ✨

Type name:  application

Subtype name:  rfc+xml

Required parameters:  There are no required parameters.

Optional parameters:  "charset": This parameter has identical
   semantics to the charset parameter of the "application/xml" Media
   Type specified in Section 9.1 of [RFC7303].

Encoding considerations:  Identical to those of "application/xml" as
   described in Section 9.1 of [RFC7303].

Security considerations:  As defined in Section 7.  In addition, as
   this Media Type uses the "+xml" convention, it inherits the
   security considerations described in Section 10 of [RFC7303].

Interoperability considerations:  Different implementations of this
   format have had interoperability issues.  It is not expected that
   publication of this application will cause those implementations
   to be fixed.

Published specification:  This specification.

Applications that use this Media Type:  Applications that transform
   xml2rfc to output representations such as plain text or HTML, plus
   additional analysis tools.

Fragment identifier considerations:  The "anchor" attribute is used
   for assigning document-wide unique identifiers that can be used as
   shorthand pointers, as described in [XPOINTER].

Additional information:

   Deprecated alias names for this type:  None

   Magic number(s):  As specified for "application/xml" in [RFC7303].

   File extension(s):  .xml or .rfcxml when disambiguation from other
      XML files is needed

   Macintosh file type code(s):  TEXT

Person & email address to contact for further information:  See the
   Author's Address section of RFC 7991.

Intended usage:  COMMON

Restrictions on usage:  None

Author:  See the Author's Address section of RFC 7991.

Change controller:  RFC Series Editor (rse@rfc-editor.org)

8.2. Link Relation Registration 🦋

IANA has registered "convertedFrom" in the "Link Relation Types" registry [LINKRELATIONS] 🌸

Relation Name: convertedFrom

Description: The document linked to was later converted to the
document that contains this link relation.  For example, an RFC can
have a link to the Internet-Draft that became the RFC; in that case,
the link relation would be "convertedFrom".

Reference: This document.

Notes: This relation is different than "predecessor-version" in that
"predecessor-version" is for items in a version control system.  It
is also different than "previous" in that this relation is used for
converted resources, not those that are part of a sequence of
resources.

Application Data: None

9. References 📚

9.1. Normative References 👑

[BCP14]    Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
           Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
           DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
           <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp14>.

[XML]      Bray, T., Paoli, J., Sperberg-McQueen, C., Maler, E.,
           and F. Yergeau, "Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0
           (Fifth Edition)", W3C Recommendation REC-xml-20081126,
           November 2008,
           <https://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-xml-20081126/>.

           Latest version available at <http://www.w3.org/TR/xml>.

9.2. Informative References

Okay bestie, these are the extra reads the document points to 📚 Not the core rules, but still worth knowing about 💅

[IDGUIDE] Housley, R., "Guidelines to Authors of Internet-Drafts", December 2010, <https://www.ietf.org/id-info/guidelines.html>.
[LINKRELATIONS] IANA, "Link Relations", <https://www.iana.org/assignments/link-relations/>.
[RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, DOI 10.17487/RFC2026, October 1996, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2026>.
[RFC2397] Masinter, L., "The "data" URL scheme", RFC 2397, DOI 10.17487/RFC2397, August 1998, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2397>.
[RFC2629] Rose, M., "Writing I-Ds and RFCs using XML", RFC 2629, DOI 10.17487/RFC2629, June 1999, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2629>.
[RFC3339] Klyne, G. and C. Newman, "Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps", RFC 3339, DOI 10.17487/RFC3339, July 2002, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3339>.
[RFC3470] Hollenbeck, S., Rose, M., and L. Masinter, "Guidelines for the Use of Extensible Markup Language (XML) within IETF Protocols", BCP 70, RFC 3470, DOI 10.17487/RFC3470, January 2003, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3470>.
[RFC3667] Bradner, S., "IETF Rights in Contributions", RFC 3667, DOI 10.17487/RFC3667, February 2004, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3667>.
[RFC3966] Schulzrinne, H., "The tel URI for Telephone Numbers", RFC 3966, DOI 10.17487/RFC3966, December 2004, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3966>.
[RFC3978] Bradner, S., Ed., "IETF Rights in Contributions", RFC 3978, DOI 10.17487/RFC3978, March 2005, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3978>.
[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3986>.
[RFC5234] Crocker, D., Ed., and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, DOI 10.17487/RFC5234, January 2008, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5234>.
[RFC5378] Bradner, S., Ed., and J. Contreras, Ed., "Rights Contributors Provide to the IETF Trust", BCP 78, RFC 5378, DOI 10.17487/RFC5378, November 2008, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5378>.
[RFC6068] Duerst, M., Masinter, L., and J. Zawinski, "The 'mailto' URI Scheme", RFC 6068, DOI 10.17487/RFC6068, October 2010, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6068>.
[RFC6266] Reschke, J., "Use of the Content-Disposition Header Field in the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)", RFC 6266, DOI 10.17487/RFC6266, June 2011, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6266>.
[RFC6838] Freed, N., Klensin, J., and T. Hansen, "Media Type Specifications and Registration Procedures", BCP 13, RFC 6838, DOI 10.17487/RFC6838, January 2013, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6838>.
[RFC6949] Flanagan, H. and N. Brownlee, "RFC Series Format Requirements and Future Development", RFC 6949, DOI 10.17487/RFC6949, May 2013, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6949>.
[RFC7303] Thompson, H. and C. Lilley, "XML Media Types", RFC 7303, DOI 10.17487/RFC7303, July 2014, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7303>.
[RFC7322] Flanagan, H. and S. Ginoza, "RFC Style Guide", RFC 7322, DOI 10.17487/RFC7322, September 2014, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7322>.
[RFC7669] Levine, J., "Assigning Digital Object Identifiers to RFCs", RFC 7669, DOI 10.17487/RFC7669, October 2015, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7669>.
[RFC7749] Reschke, J., "The "xml2rfc" Version 2 Vocabulary", RFC 7749, DOI 10.17487/RFC7749, February 2016, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7749>.
[RFC7841] Halpern, J., Ed., Daigle, L., Ed., and O. Kolkman, Ed., "RFC Streams, Headers, and Boilerplates", RFC 7841, DOI 10.17487/RFC7841, May 2016, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7841>.
[RFC7996] Brownlee, N., "SVG Drawings for RFCs: SVG 1.2 RFC", RFC 7996, DOI 10.17487/RFC7996, December 2016, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7996>.
[RFC7997] Flanagan, H., Ed., "The Use of Non-ASCII Characters in RFCs", RFC 7997, DOI 10.17487/RFC7997, December 2016, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7997>.
[RFC7998] Hoffman, P. and J. Hildebrand, ""xml2rfc" Version 3 Preparation Tool Description", RFC 7998, DOI 10.17487/RFC7998, December 2016, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7998>.
[RNC] Clark, J., "RELAX NG Compact Syntax", The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), November 2002, <https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/relax-ng/compact-20021121.html>.
[RNG] ISO/IEC, "Information Technology - Document Schema Definition Languages (DSDL) - Part 2: Regular-Grammar-Based Validation - RELAX NG (Second Edition)", ISO/IEC 19757-2:2008(E), December 2008. A useful source of RNG-related information is <http://relaxng.org/>.
[TLP1.0] IETF Trust, "Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents", November 2008, <http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info/IETF-TLP-1.htm>.
[TLP2.0] IETF Trust, "Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents", February 2009, <http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info/IETF-TLP-2.htm>.
[TLP3.0] IETF Trust, "Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents", September 2009, <http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info/IETF-TLP-3.htm>.
[TLP4.0] IETF Trust, "Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents", December 2009, <http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info/IETF-TLP-4.htm>.
[TLP5.0] IETF Trust, "Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents", March 2015, <http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info/IETF-TLP-5.htm>.
[UAX24] The Unicode Consortium, "UAX #24: Unicode Script Property", <http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr24/>.
[UNICODE] The Unicode Consortium, "The Unicode Standard", <http://www.unicode.org/versions/latest/>.
[USASCII] American National Standards Institute, "Coded Character Set -- 7-bit American Standard Code for Information Interchange", ANSI X3.4, 1986.
[XInclude] Marsh, J., Orchard, D., and D. Veillard, "XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.0 (Second Edition)", W3C Recommendation REC-xinclude-20061115, November 2006, <https://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xinclude-20061115/>. Latest version available at <http://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude/>.
[XPOINTER] Grosso, P., Maler, E., Marsh, J., and N. Walsh, "XPointer Framework", W3C Recommendation REC-xptr-framework-20030325, March 2003, <http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-xptr-framework-20030325/>. Latest version available at <http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr-framework/>.

Appendix A. Front-Page ("Boilerplate") Generation ✨

The RFC Series Editor is the one who defines these values 👑 The ones listed below are the ones believed to be the current values in use 🌸

A.1. The "ipr" Attribute

This attribute value can take a long list of values, each of which describes an IPR policy for the document (Section 2.45.5). 💅 The values aren't the result of a grand design, they just stick around for historic reasons 🙈 Only a few of them are actually in use right now. The rest are supported by various tools so older source files still work 🔥

Note: Some variations of the boilerplate are selected based on the document's date; therefore, it is important to specify the "year", "month", and "day" attributes of the <date> element when archiving the XML source of an Internet-Draft on the day of submission.

_Disclaimer: THIS ONLY PROVIDES IMPLEMENTATION INFORMATION. IF YOU NEED LEGAL ADVICE, PLEASE CONTACT A LAWYER._ 💀 For further information, refer to <http://trustee.ietf.org/docs/IETF-Copyright-FAQ.pdf>.

For the current "Copyright Notice" text, the submissionType attribute of the <rfc> element (Section 2.45.12) decides whether a statement about "Code Components" gets inserted. That's the case for the value "IETF", which is the default 🎀 Other values, such as "independent", suppress this part of the text 🦋

A.1.1. Current Values: "*trust200902"

The name for these values refers to version 2.0 of the IETF Trust's "Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents", sometimes just called the "TLP", which went into effect on February 15, 2009 [TLP2.0]. Updates to the document were published on September 12, 2009 [TLP3.0] and on December 28, 2009 [TLP4.0], modifying the license for code components (see <http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info/> for further information). The actual text is located in Section 6 ("Text to Be Included in IETF Documents") of these documents. 🧚

The prep tool automatically produces the "correct" text, depending on the document's date information (see above):

+----------+--------------------------------+
| TLP      | starting with publication date |
+----------+--------------------------------+
| [TLP3.0] | 2009-11-01                     |
| [TLP4.0] | 2010-04-01                     |
+----------+--------------------------------+

The TLP was again updated in March 2015 [TLP5.0], but the changes made in that version do not affect the boilerplate text 🌈

A.1.1.1. trust200902

This value should be used unless one of the more specific "*trust200902" values is a better fit ✨ It produces the text in Sections 6.a and 6.b of the TLP.

A.1.1.2. noModificationTrust200902

This produces the additional text from Section 6.c.i of the TLP:

This document may not be modified, and derivative works of it may not be created, except to format it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other than English.

Note: this clause is incompatible with RFCs that are published on the Standards Track. 😭

A.1.1.3. noDerivativesTrust200902

This produces the additional text from Section 6.c.ii of the TLP:

This document may not be modified, and derivative works of it may not be created, and it may not be published except as an Internet-Draft.

Note: this clause is incompatible with RFCs. 🫶

A.1.1.4. pre5378Trust200902

okay so this one is the pre-5378 escape clause 💅 It produces the extra text from Section 6.c.iii of the TLP. People call it that because of the changes that [RFC5378] brought in 🌸

This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF
Contributions published or made publicly available before November
10, 2008.  The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this
material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow
modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process.
Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s)
controlling the copyright in such materials, this document may not
be modified outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative
works of it may not be created outside the IETF Standards Process,
except to format it for publication as an RFC or to translate it
into languages other than English.

For more info on when to actually use this value, check out Section 4 of the IETF Copyright FAQ 🦋 The link is:

<http://trustee.ietf.org/docs/
IETF-Copyright-FAQ.pdf>

Note: this text shows up under "Copyright Notice", unless the document was published before November 2009. If it was, the text shows up under "Status of This Memo" instead 🙈

A.1.2. Historic Values

A.1.2.1. Historic Values: "*trust200811"

The values "trust200811", "noModificationTrust200811", and "noDerivativesTrust200811" are basically the same vibe as their "trust200902" cousins. The one difference is that they use the text from [TLP1.0] 🎀

A.1.2.2. Historic Values: "*3978"

The values "full3978", "noModification3978", and "noDerivatives3978" are like their counterparts above. They just use the text from [RFC3978] ✨

A.1.2.3. Historic Values: "*3667"

The values "full3667", "noModification3667", and "noDerivatives3667" are like their counterparts above too. They use the text from [RFC3667] 🌈

A.1.2.4. Historic Values: "*2026"

The values "full2026" and "noDerivativeWorks2026" match their counterparts above, except they use the text in Section 10 of [RFC2026] 🧚

Back then there was also a special value called "none". It meant the IETF got no rights beyond publishing as an Internet-Draft 😭

A.2. The "submissionType" Attribute

The RFC Editor publishes documents from different "document streams" 🌸 The "IETF stream" is the biggest one, but there are others. The "Independent Submissions stream" is for things like discussing Internet-related technologies that aren't on the IETF agenda. Then there's the "IAB stream" (Internet Architecture Board) and the "IRTF stream" (Internet Research Task Force) 💜

The values for this attribute are "IETF" (the default), "independent", "IAB", and "IRTF" 🫶

Historically, this attribute didn't change how RFCs looked, except for tiny differences in the copyright notices. These days (as of [RFC7841]), the stream name shows up in the first line of the front page, and it also changes the text in the "Status of This Memo" section 👑

For current documents, setting the "submissionType" attribute does a few things:

For RFCs, the stream name shows up in the upper left corner of the first page. In Internet-Drafts it's either "Network Working Group" or whatever the value of the <workgroup> element is 🍓
For RFCs, it affects the whole "Status of This Memo" section (see Section 3.2 of [RFC7841]) 💅
For all RFCs and Internet-Drafts, it decides whether the "Copyright Notice" mentions the Copyright on Code Components (see Section 6 of the TLP ("Text to Be Included in IETF Documents")) ✨

A.3. The "consensus" Attribute

For some of the publication streams (see Appendix A.2), the "Status of This Memo" section depends on whether there was a consensus to publish. Again, see Section 3.4 of [RFC7841] 🔥

The "consensus" attribute is how you supply that info. The acceptable values are "true" (the default) and "false". "yes" and "no" from v2 are deprecated 🙈

Here's what the value does for each stream:

"independent": nothing 🌙
"IAB": mentions that there was an IAB consensus 💜
"IETF": mentions that there was an IETF consensus 🎀
"IRTF": mentions that there was a research group consensus. The name of the research group gets pulled from the <workgroup> element 🦋

Appendix B. The v3 Format and Processing Tools

This section is all about topics specific to v3 processing tools. Heads up, there's also some tool talk in the main body of the document. For example, some elements describe how a processing tool might create output from that element 🧚

Here's the design the tools for v3 documents are expected to have:

A "prep tool" that takes a v3 document, makes lots of checks, adds and changes lots of attribute values, and creates a file that is a "prepared document". The prepared document is a valid v3 document. The prep tool is described in [RFC7998] 💖

The prep tool is expected to have many modes:

RFC mode: the mode the RFC Editor uses to process input from one of the RFC streams, and to process XML produced during the RFC editing process. The restrictions on the canonical XML for RFCs, plus how the non-canonical formats will look, are described at:

<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rse/wiki/
doku.php?id=design:format-and-content-rfcs>

Draft mode: the mode the Internet-Draft submission tool uses. The restrictions on the XML from this mode will be described later 🌸
Diagnostic mode: a mode authors can use to look for errors or warnings before they submit their documents for publication 🔍
Consolidation mode: makes output where no external resources are needed to render the file. This includes expanding the XInclude entities and DTD entities in place, and changing every element with "src" attributes that point to external links into either a "data:" URI or the content for the element, as specified in [RFC7998] 🌈

Formatting tools that create HTML, PDF, plain text, and maybe other output formats. The IETF will create these formatters, but others can make tools like them too. The IETF tools are expected to take prepared documents as input 💜

There may also be processing tools meant to run on authors' computers. These tools can be used to make interim versions of the non-canonical representations, so authors can preview how their XML might later be rendered. They can also create documents in representations the RFC Editor doesn't support, create documents that aren't meant to be Internet-Drafts or RFCs, and convert XML that has external information into XML that has that information included 🫶

The prep tool is expected to have clear error reporting, with more context than just a line number. For example, the error messages should tell apart errors in the XML from errors in the v3 format ✨

In v2, the grammar was specified as a DTD. In v3, the grammar is specified only as RELAX Next Generation (RNG). That means tools need to work from the RNG, not from a DTD. Some features of the v3 grammar can't be specified as a DTD 💅

B.1. Including External Text with XInclude

All tools for the v3 format are expected to support XInclude [XInclude]. XInclude gives you a processing model and syntax for general-purpose inclusion of information, whether that info is on the Internet or local to the user's computer 🌸

In the v3 syntax, XInclude is written as the <xi:include> element. To use it, you need the "xi" namespace in the <rfc> element. In other words, you need to specify this as one of the attributes on <rfc>:

xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"

The most common use of <xi:include> is pulling in references that are already formed as XML. Right now you can do this from xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org, but later it's expected to come from the RFC Editor 🦋 For example, if a document has three normative references, all of them RFCs, the document might contain:

<references>
    <xi:include href="http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/
       bibxml/reference.RFC.2119.xml"/>
    <xi:include href="http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/
       bibxml/reference.RFC.4869.xml"/>
    <xi:include href="http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/
       bibxml/reference.RFC.7169.xml"/>
</references>

<xi:include> can go anywhere an XML element could go (but not where free text is used). For example, if three Internet-Drafts all include a particular paragraph or section verbatim, that text can live in a file or somewhere on the web and be pulled in with <xi:include> 🧚 An example of pulling something from the local disk would be:

<x:include href="file://home/chris/ietf/drafts/commontext.xml"/>

In general, XInclude should be used instead of ENTITY references and XML Processing Instructions (PIs) that allow external inclusions 🌈

B.2. Anchors and IDs

People writing and reading Internet-Drafts and RFCs often want to point at specific spots in those documents 🎀 Authors often want to reference another part of their own document, like "see Section 3.2 of this document." Readers, on the other hand, want to reference parts of documents they didn't write, like "see Section 3.2 of RFC 6949." The XML vocabulary in this document tries to support both groups 💖

Authors can leave anchors in a document, and use them later for references with the "anchor" attribute. Anchors can go on lots of elements. The author then refers to that anchor in the "target" attribute of the <xref> element ✨

Readers can refer to any element that has an "anchor" attribute by that attribute. Heads up, though: most of the time, elements won't have anchors. In the common case, the reader wants to refer to an element that doesn't have an "anchor" attribute, but does have a "pn" attribute 🙈

Processing tools add the "pn" attribute to lots of elements during processing. The tool generates this attribute and its value automatically if it isn't there. If the attribute is already there, the tool may replace the value 🫶

B.2.1. Overlapping Values ✨

okay so bestie, in the HTML version of this vocab, both anchors AND "pn" attributes end up in id attributes 😭 which means there can be NO overlap between the names in "anchor" attributes, in "slugifiedName" attributes, and the ones generated for "pn" attributes. 🫶 Also some "anchor" values are reserved for sections, and those sections can ONLY use those anchor values. Main character rules, fr fr.

Here's how the rules keep everything from clashing 💅

"pn" for regular sections always has the format s-nnn, where nnn is the section number, or the appendix identifier (which starts with a letter). For example, this would be s-2.1.3 for Section 2.1.3 and s-a for Appendix A. For the <abstract> element, it is always s-abstract. For the <note> element, it is always s-note-nnn, where nnn is a sequential value. For sections in the <boilerplate> element, it is always s-boilerplate-nnn, where nnn is a sequential value. 🎀
"pn" for <references> elements has the format s-nnn. This one is lowkey tricky 🙈 nnn is a NUMBER, not letters, even though the <references> show up in the back. It's the number one higher than the highest top-level section number in <middle>. If there are two or more <references>, nnn will include a dot, as if the <references> are a subsection of a section numbered one higher than the highest top-level section number in <middle>. 🧚
"pn" for <figure> elements always has the format f-nnn, where nnn is the figure number. For example, this would be f-5 for Figure 5. 🌸
"pn" for <iref> elements always has the format i-ttt-nnn, where ttt is the slugified item (plus a hyphen and the slugified subitem if there is a subitem), and nnn is the instance of that item/subitem pair. For example, this would be i-foo-1 for <iref item='foo'> and i-foo-bar-1 for <iref item='foo' subitem='bar'>. 🦋
"pn" for <table> elements always has the format t-nnn, where nnn is the table number. For example, this would be t-5 for Table 5. 💖
"pn" for all elements NOT listed above always has the format p-nnn-mmm, where nnn is the section number and mmm is the relative position in the section. For example, this would be p-2.1.3-7 for the seventh part number in Section 2.1.3. ✨
"slugifiedName" always has the format n-ttt, where ttt is the text of the name after slugification. For example, this would be n-protocol-overview for the name "Protocol Overview". The actual conversions done in slugification will be specified at a later time. 🌈
Anchors must never overlap with any of the above. The easiest way to make sure of that is to not pick an anchor name that starts with a single letter followed by a hyphen. If an anchor DOES overlap with one of the types of names above, the processing tool will reject the document. 💀

Don't be the person whose anchor starts with x- and then wonders why the whole doc got rejected 😭

B.3. Attributes Controlled by the Prep Tool

Okay so a bunch of elements in the v3 vocab have new attributes whose whole job is holding values the prep tool generates 🍓 These attributes CAN show up in documents you feed into the prep tool, BUT the prep tool might add, remove, or change any of them. 🫠 So it's explicitly unsafe for an author to include these attributes and expect their values to survive prep processing. Don't be that girl 🙅‍♀️

The attributes controlled by the prep tool are:

The "pn" attribute in any element. This is the number for this item within the section. The numbering is shared with other elements of a section. The "pn" attribute is added to many block-level elements inside sections. 🔢
<artwork> originalSrc. This attribute is filled with the original value of the "src" attribute if that attribute is removed by the prep tool. 🎨
<figure> originalSrc. This attribute is filled with the original value of the "src" attribute if that attribute is removed by the prep tool. 🖼️
<name> "slugifiedName" attribute. This attribute is filled with a "slugified" version of the text in the element. It can be used in the output formats for elements that have both names and numbers. 🏷️
<relref> "derivedLink" attribute. This attribute is filled with the link derived from combining the URI from the reference and the relative part, which is either a copy of the "relative" attribute or a section number derived from the "section" attribute. 🔗
<rfc> "expiresDate" attribute. This attribute is filled with the date that an Internet-Draft expires. The date is in the format yyyy-mm-dd. 📅
<rfc> "mode" attribute. This attribute is filled with a string that indicates what mode the prep tool was in when it processed the XML, such as whether it was processing a file to become an Internet-Draft or an RFC. 🧁
<rfc> "scripts" attribute. This attribute is filled with a list of scripts needed to render this document. The list is comma-separated, with no spaces allowed, and the order is unimportant. The names come from [UAX24]. For example, if the document has Chinese characters in it, the value might be "Common,Latin,Han". 🀄
<sourcecode> "originalSrc" attribute. This attribute is filled with the original value of the "src" attribute if that attribute is removed by the prep tool. 💻
<xref> "derivedContent" attribute. This attribute is filled in if there is no content in the <xref> element. The value for this attribute is based on the value in the "displayFormat" attribute. Examples of how this value is filled can be found in Section 2.66.1. 🎯

And one more thing 👀 the contents of the <boilerplate> element are controlled by the prep tool too. Hands off, bestie 🤚

Appendix C. RELAX NG Schema 🦋

The following is the RELAX NG schema for the v3 format. Schema time, and yes it's giving very structured 🤓

namespace a = "http://relaxng.org/ns/compatibility/annotations/1.0"

# xml2rfc Version 3 grammar

rfc =
  element rfc {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute number { text }?,
    [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute obsoletes { text }?,
    [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute updates { text }?,
    attribute category { text }?,
    attribute mode { text }?,
    [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
    attribute consensus { "no" | "yes" | "false" | "true" }?,
    attribute seriesNo { text }?,
    attribute ipr { text }?,
    attribute iprExtract { xsd:IDREF }?,
    [ a:defaultValue = "IETF" ]
    attribute submissionType {
      "IETF" | "IAB" | "IRTF" | "independent"
    }?,
    attribute docName { text }?,
    [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
    attribute sortRefs { "true" | "false" }?,
    [ a:defaultValue = "true" ]
    attribute symRefs { "true" | "false" }?,
    [ a:defaultValue = "true" ]
    attribute tocInclude { "true" | "false" }?,
    [ a:defaultValue = "3" ] attribute tocDepth { text }?,
    attribute prepTime { text }?,
    [ a:defaultValue = "true" ]
    attribute indexInclude { "true" | "false" }?,
    attribute version { text }?,
    [ a:defaultValue = "Common,Latin" ] attribute scripts { text }?,
    attribute expiresDate { text }?,
    link*,
    front,
    middle,
    back?
  }

link =
  element link {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute href { text },
    attribute rel { text }?
  }

front =
  element front {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    title,
    seriesInfo*,
    author+,
    date?,
    area*,
    workgroup*,
    keyword*,
    abstract?,
    note*,
    boilerplate?
  }

title =
  element title {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute abbrev { text }?,
    attribute ascii { text }?,
    text
  }

author =
  element author {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute initials { text }?,
    attribute asciiInitials { text }?,
    attribute surname { text }?,
    attribute asciiSurname { text }?,
    attribute fullname { text }?,
    attribute role { "editor" }?,
    attribute asciiFullname { text }?,
    organization?,
    address?
  }

organization =
  element organization {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute abbrev { text }?,
    attribute ascii { text }?,
    text
  }

address =
  element address {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    postal?,
    phone?,
    facsimile?,
    email?,
    uri?
  }

postal =
  element postal {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    ((city | code | country | region | street)* | postalLine+)
  }

street =
  element street {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute ascii { text }?,
    text
  }

city =
  element city {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute ascii { text }?,
    text
  }

region =
  element region {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute ascii { text }?,
    text
  }

code =
  element code {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute ascii { text }?,
    text
  }

country =
  element country {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute ascii { text }?,
    text
  }

postalLine =
  element postalLine {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute ascii { text }?,
    text
  }

phone =
  element phone {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    text
  }

facsimile =
  element facsimile {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    text
  }

email =
  element email {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute ascii { text }?,
    text
  }

uri =
  element uri {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    text
  }

date =
  element date {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute day { text }?,
    attribute month { text }?,
    attribute year { text }?,
    empty
  }

area =
  element area {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    text
  }

workgroup =
  element workgroup {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    text
  }

keyword =
  element keyword {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    text
  }

abstract =
  element abstract {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
    attribute pn { text }?,
    (dl | ol | t | ul)+
  }

note =
  element note {
    attribute xml:base { text }?,
    attribute xml:lang { text }?,
    attribute title { text }?,
    attribute pn { text }?,
    [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
    attribute removeInRFC { "true" | "false" }?,
    name?,
    (dl | ol | t | ul)+
  }

Okay bestie, this is the schema zone 🎀 Every element and attribute is copied exactly, so the parser stays happy 💅

   boilerplate =
     element boilerplate {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       section+
     }

   middle =
     element middle {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       section+
     }

   section =
     element section {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       attribute title { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "true" ]
       attribute numbered { "true" | "false" }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "default" ]
       attribute toc { "include" | "exclude" | "default" }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
       attribute removeInRFC { "true" | "false" }?,
       name?,
       (artwork
        | aside
        | blockquote
        | dl
        | figure
        | iref
        | ol
        | sourcecode
        | t
        | table
        | texttable
        | ul)*,
       section*
     }

   name =
     element name {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute slugifiedName { text }?,
       (text | cref | eref | relref | tt | xref)*
     }

   t =
     element t {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       attribute hangText { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
       attribute keepWithNext { "false" | "true" }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
       attribute keepWithPrevious { "false" | "true" }?,
       (text
        | bcp14
        | cref
        | em
        | eref
        | iref
        | \list
        | relref
        | spanx
        | strong
        | sub
        | sup
        | tt
        | vspace
        | xref)*
     }

   aside =
     element aside {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       (artwork | dl | figure | iref | \list | ol | t | table | ul)*
     }

   blockquote =
     element blockquote {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       attribute cite { text }?,
       attribute quotedFrom { text }?,
       ((artwork | dl | figure | ol | sourcecode | t | ul)+
        | (text
           | bcp14
           | cref
           | em
           | eref
           | iref
           | relref
           | strong
           | sub
           | sup
           | tt
           | xref)+)
     }

   \list =
     element list {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "empty" ] attribute style { text }?,
       attribute hangIndent { text }?,
       attribute counter { text }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       t+
     }

   ol =
     element ol {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "1" ] attribute type { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "1" ] attribute start { text }?,
       attribute group { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "normal" ]
       attribute spacing { "normal" | "compact" }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       li+
     }

   ul =
     element ul {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "normal" ]
       attribute spacing { "normal" | "compact" }?,
       ([ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
        attribute empty { "false" | "true" },
        attribute pn { text }?)?,
       li+
     }

   li =
     element li {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       ((artwork | dl | figure | ol | sourcecode | t | ul)+
        | (text
           | bcp14
           | cref
           | em
           | eref
           | iref
           | relref
           | strong
           | sub
           | sup
           | tt
           | xref)+)
     }

   dl =
     element dl {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "normal" ]
       attribute spacing { "normal" | "compact" }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "true" ]
       attribute hanging { "false" | "true" }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       (dt, dd)+
     }

   dt =
     element dt {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       (text
        | bcp14
        | cref
        | em
        | eref
        | iref
        | relref
        | strong
        | sub
        | sup
        | tt
        | xref)*
     }

   dd =
     element dd {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       ((artwork | dl | figure | ol | sourcecode | t | ul)+
        | (text
           | bcp14
           | cref
           | em
           | eref
           | iref
           | relref
           | strong
           | sub
           | sup
           | tt
           | xref)+)
     }

   xref =
     element xref {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute target { xsd:IDREF },
       [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
       attribute pageno { "true" | "false" }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "default" ]
       attribute format { "default" | "title" | "counter" | "none" }?,
       attribute derivedContent { text }?,
       text
     }

   relref =
     element relref {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute target { xsd:IDREF },
       [ a:defaultValue = "of" ]
       attribute displayFormat { "of" | "comma" | "parens" | "bare" }?,
       attribute section { text },
       attribute relative { text }?,
       attribute derivedLink { text }?,
       text
     }

   eref =
     element eref {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute target { text },
       text
     }

   iref =
     element iref {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute item { text },
       [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute subitem { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
       attribute primary { "true" | "false" }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       empty
     }

   cref =
     element cref {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       attribute source { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "true" ]
       attribute display { "true" | "false" }?,
       (text | em | eref | relref | strong | sub | sup | tt | xref)*
     }

   tt =
     element tt {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       (text
        | bcp14
        | cref
        | em
        | eref
        | iref
        | relref
        | strong
        | sub
        | sup
        | xref)*
     }

   strong =
     element strong {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       (text
        | bcp14
        | cref
        | em
        | eref
        | iref
        | relref
        | sub
        | sup
        | tt
        | xref)*
     }

   em =
     element em {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       (text
        | bcp14
        | cref
        | eref
        | iref
        | relref
        | strong
        | sub
        | sup
        | tt
        | xref)*
     }

   sub =
     element sub {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       (text
        | bcp14
        | cref
        | em
        | eref
        | iref
        | relref
        | strong
        | tt
        | xref)*
     }

   sup =
     element sup {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       (text
        | bcp14
        | cref
        | em
        | eref
        | iref
        | relref
        | strong
        | tt
        | xref)*
     }

   spanx =
     element spanx {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "preserve" ]
       attribute xml:space { "default" | "preserve" }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "emph" ] attribute style { text }?,
       text
     }

   vspace =
     element vspace {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "0" ] attribute blankLines { text }?,
       empty
     }

   figure =
     element figure {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute title { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
       attribute suppress-title { "true" | "false" }?,
       attribute src { text }?,
       attribute originalSrc { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "left" ]
       attribute align { "left" | "center" | "right" }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute alt { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute width { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute height { text }?,
       name?,
       iref*,
       preamble?,
       (artwork | sourcecode)+,
       postamble?
     }

   table =
     element table {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       name?,
       iref*,
       thead?,
       tbody+,
       tfoot?
     }

   preamble =
     element preamble {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       (text
        | bcp14
        | cref
        | em
        | eref
        | iref
        | relref
        | spanx
        | strong
        | sub
        | sup
        | tt
        | xref)*
     }

   artwork =
     element artwork {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       attribute xml:space { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute name { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute type { text }?,
       attribute src { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "left" ]
       attribute align { "left" | "center" | "right" }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute alt { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute width { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute height { text }?,
       attribute originalSrc { text }?,
       (text* | svg)
     }
   # https://www.rfc-editor.org/materials/format/SVG-1.2-RFC.rnc

   sourcecode =
     element sourcecode {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute name { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute type { text }?,
       attribute src { text }?,
       attribute originalSrc { text }?,
       text
     }

   thead =
     element thead {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       tr+
     }

   tbody =
     element tbody {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       tr+
     }

   tfoot =
     element tfoot {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       tr+
     }

   tr =
     element tr {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       (td | th)+
     }

   td =
     element td {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "0" ] attribute colspan { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "0" ] attribute rowspan { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "left" ]
       attribute align { "left" | "center" | "right" }?,
       ((artwork | dl | figure | ol | sourcecode | t | ul)+
        | (text
           | bcp14
           | br
           | cref
           | em
           | eref
           | iref
           | relref
           | strong
           | sub
           | sup
           | tt
           | xref)*)
     }

   th =
     element th {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "0" ] attribute colspan { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "0" ] attribute rowspan { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "left" ]
       attribute align { "left" | "center" | "right" }?,
       ((artwork | dl | figure | ol | sourcecode | t | ul)+
        | (text
           | bcp14
           | br
           | cref
           | em
           | eref
           | iref
           | relref
           | strong
           | sub
           | sup
           | tt
           | xref)*)
     }

   postamble =
     element postamble {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       (text | cref | eref | iref | spanx | xref)*
     }

   texttable =
     element texttable {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute title { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
       attribute suppress-title { "true" | "false" }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "center" ]
       attribute align { "left" | "center" | "right" }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "full" ]
       attribute style { "all" | "none" | "headers" | "full" }?,
       name?,
       preamble?,
       ttcol+,
       c*,
       postamble?
     }

   ttcol =
     element ttcol {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute width { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "left" ]
       attribute align { "left" | "center" | "right" }?,
       (cref | eref | iref | xref | text)*
     }

   c =
     element c {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       (text | cref | eref | iref | spanx | xref)*
     }

   bcp14 =
     element bcp14 {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       text
     }

   br =
     element br {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       empty
     }

   back =
     element back {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       displayreference*,
       references*,
       section*
     }

   displayreference =
     element displayreference {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute target { xsd:IDREF },
       attribute to { text }
     }

   references =
     element references {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute pn { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
       attribute title { text }?,
       name?,
       (reference | referencegroup)*
     }

   reference =
     element reference {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID },
       attribute target { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "true" ]
       attribute quoteTitle { "true" | "false" }?,
       front,
       (annotation | format | refcontent | seriesInfo)*
     }

   referencegroup =
     element referencegroup {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute anchor { xsd:ID },
       reference+
     }

   seriesInfo =
     element seriesInfo {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute name { text },
       attribute value { text },
       attribute asciiName { text }?,
       attribute asciiValue { text }?,
       attribute status { text }?,
       [ a:defaultValue = "IETF" ]
       attribute stream { "IETF" | "IAB" | "IRTF" | "independent" }?,
       empty
     }

   format =
     element format {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       attribute target { text }?,
       attribute type { text },
       attribute octets { text }?,
       empty
     }

   annotation =
     element annotation {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       (text
        | bcp14
        | cref
        | em
        | eref
        | iref
        | relref
        | spanx
        | strong
        | sub
        | sup
        | tt
        | xref)*
     }

   refcontent =
     element refcontent {
       attribute xml:base { text }?,
       attribute xml:lang { text }?,
       (text | bcp14 | em | strong | sub | sup | tt)*
     }
   start |= rfc

Okay, the schema is all laid out, and it's time to look at the bits that changed from v2 to v3 🎀✨ This next part is a non-normative comparison (so it's just a helpful guide, not a rule 💅). Lines starting with a "-" got removed from the v2 schema, and lines starting with a "+" got added in v3. Everything else stayed the same 🌸

Appendix D. Schema Differences from v2 ✨

     namespace a =
     "http://relaxng.org/ns/compatibility/annotations/1.0"

   + # xml2rfc Version 3 grammar
     rfc =
       element rfc {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute number { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute obsoletes { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute updates { text }?,
   -     attribute category { "std" | "bcp" | "info" | "exp" |
   - "historic" }?,
   -     attribute consensus { "no" | "yes" }?,
   +     attribute category { text }?,
   +     attribute mode { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
   +     attribute consensus { "no" | "yes" | "false" | "true" }?,
         attribute seriesNo { text }?,
   -     attribute ipr {
   -       "full2026"
   -       | "noDerivativeWorks2026"
   -       | "none"
   -       | "full3667"
   -       | "noModification3667"
   -       | "noDerivatives3667"
   -       | "full3978"
   -       | "noModification3978"
   -       | "noDerivatives3978"
   -       | "trust200811"
   -       | "noModificationTrust200811"
   -       | "noDerivativesTrust200811"
   -       | "trust200902"
   -       | "noModificationTrust200902"
   -       | "noDerivativesTrust200902"
   -       | "pre5378Trust200902"
   -     }?,
   +     attribute ipr { text }?,
         attribute iprExtract { xsd:IDREF }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "IETF" ]
         attribute submissionType {
           "IETF" | "IAB" | "IRTF" | "independent"
         }?,
         attribute docName { text }?,
   -     [ a:defaultValue = "en" ] attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
   +     attribute sortRefs { "true" | "false" }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "true" ]
   +     attribute symRefs { "true" | "false" }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "true" ]
   +     attribute tocInclude { "true" | "false" }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "3" ] attribute tocDepth { text }?,
   +     attribute prepTime { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "true" ]
   +     attribute indexInclude { "true" | "false" }?,
   +     attribute version { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "Common,Latin" ] attribute scripts { text
   + }?,
   +     attribute expiresDate { text }?,
   +     link*,
         front,
         middle,
         back?
       }

   + link =
   +   element link {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute href { text },
   +     attribute rel { text }?
   +   }
     front =
       element front {
   -     title, author+, date, area*, workgroup*, keyword*, abstract?,
   - note*
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     title,
   +     seriesInfo*,
   +     author+,
   +     date?,
   +     area*,
   +     workgroup*,
   +     keyword*,
   +     abstract?,
   +     note*,
   +     boilerplate?
       }
     title =
       element title {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute abbrev { text }?,
   +     attribute ascii { text }?,
         text
       }
     author =
       element author {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute initials { text }?,
   +     attribute asciiInitials { text }?,
         attribute surname { text }?,
   +     attribute asciiSurname { text }?,
         attribute fullname { text }?,
         attribute role { "editor" }?,
   +     attribute asciiFullname { text }?,
         organization?,
         address?
       }

Okay bestie, the schema glow-up keeps going 💖 Here's the diff: + is what got added and - is what got cut 🎀

     organization =
       element organization {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute abbrev { text }?,
   +     attribute ascii { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + address =
   +   element address {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     postal?,
   +     phone?,
   +     facsimile?,
   +     email?,
   +     uri?
   +   }
   + postal =
   +   element postal {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     ((city | code | country | region | street)* | postalLine+)
   +   }
   + street =
   +   element street {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute ascii { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + city =
   +   element city {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute ascii { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + region =
   +   element region {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute ascii { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + code =
   +   element code {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute ascii { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + country =
   +   element country {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute ascii { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + postalLine =
   +   element postalLine {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute ascii { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + phone =
   +   element phone {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + facsimile =
   +   element facsimile {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + email =
   +   element email {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute ascii { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + uri =
   +   element uri {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         text
       }
   - address = element address { postal?, phone?, facsimile?, email?,
   - uri? }
   - postal = element postal { street+, (city | region | code |
   - country)* }
   - street = element street { text }
   - city = element city { text }
   - region = element region { text }
   - code = element code { text }
   - country = element country { text }
   - phone = element phone { text }
   - facsimile = element facsimile { text }
   - email = element email { text }
   - uri = element uri { text }
     date =
       element date {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute day { text }?,
         attribute month { text }?,
         attribute year { text }?,
         empty
       }
   - area = element area { text }
   - workgroup = element workgroup { text }
   - keyword = element keyword { text }
   - abstract = element abstract { t+ }
   + area =
   +   element area {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + workgroup =
   +   element workgroup {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + keyword =
   +   element keyword {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + abstract =
   +   element abstract {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
   +     (dl | ol | t | ul)+
   +   }
     note =
       element note {
   -     attribute title { text },
   -     t+
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute title { text }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
   +     attribute removeInRFC { "true" | "false" }?,
   +     name?,
   +     (dl | ol | t | ul)+
   +   }
   + boilerplate =
   +   element boilerplate {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     section+
   +   }
   + middle =
   +   element middle {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     section+
       }

   - middle = element middle { section+ }
     section =
       element section {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   -     attribute title { text },
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
   +     attribute title { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "true" ]
   +     attribute numbered { "true" | "false" }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "default" ]
         attribute toc { "include" | "exclude" | "default" }?,
   -     (t | figure | texttable | iref)*,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
   +     attribute removeInRFC { "true" | "false" }?,
   +     name?,
   +     (artwork
   +      | aside
   +      | blockquote
   +      | dl
   +      | figure
   +      | iref
   +      | ol
   +      | sourcecode
   +      | t
   +      | table
   +      | texttable
   +      | ul)*,
         section*
       }

   + name =
   +   element name {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute slugifiedName { text }?,
   +     (text | cref | eref | relref | tt | xref)*
   +   }
     t =
       element t {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
         attribute hangText { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
   +     attribute keepWithNext { "false" | "true" }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
   +     attribute keepWithPrevious { "false" | "true" }?,
         (text
   -      | \list
   -      | figure
   -      | xref
   +      | bcp14
   +      | cref
   +      | em
          | eref
          | iref
   -      | cref
   +      | \list
   +      | relref
          | spanx
   -      | vspace)*
   +      | strong
   +      | sub
   +      | sup
   +      | tt
   +      | vspace
   +      | xref)*
   +   }
   + aside =
   +   element aside {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
   +     (artwork | dl | figure | iref | \list | ol | t | table | ul)*
   +   }
   + blockquote =
   +   element blockquote {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
   +     attribute cite { text }?,
   +     attribute quotedFrom { text }?,
   +     ((artwork | dl | figure | ol | sourcecode | t | ul)+
   +      | (text
   +         | bcp14
   +         | cref
   +         | em
   +         | eref
   +         | iref
   +         | relref
   +         | strong
   +         | sub
   +         | sup
   +         | tt
   +         | xref)+)
       }
     \list =
       element list {
   -     attribute style { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "empty" ] attribute style { text }?,
         attribute hangIndent { text }?,
         attribute counter { text }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
         t+
       }
   + ol =
   +   element ol {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "1" ] attribute type { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "1" ] attribute start { text }?,
   +     attribute group { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "normal" ]
   +     attribute spacing { "normal" | "compact" }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
   +     li+
   +   }
   + ul =
   +   element ul {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "normal" ]
   +     attribute spacing { "normal" | "compact" }?,
   +     ([ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
   +      attribute empty { "false" | "true" },
   +      attribute pn { text }?)?,
   +     li+
   +   }
   + li =
   +   element li {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
   +     ((artwork | dl | figure | ol | sourcecode | t | ul)+
   +      | (text
   +         | bcp14
   +         | cref
   +         | em
   +         | eref
   +         | iref
   +         | relref
   +         | strong
   +         | sub
   +         | sup
   +         | tt
   +         | xref)+)
   +   }
   + dl =
   +   element dl {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "normal" ]
   +     attribute spacing { "normal" | "compact" }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "true" ]
   +     attribute hanging { "false" | "true" }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
   +     (dt, dd)+
   +   }
   + dt =
   +   element dt {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
   +     (text
   +      | bcp14
   +      | cref
   +      | em
   +      | eref
   +      | iref
   +      | relref
   +      | strong
   +      | sub
   +      | sup
   +      | tt
   +      | xref)*
   +   }
   + dd =
   +   element dd {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
   +     ((artwork | dl | figure | ol | sourcecode | t | ul)+
   +      | (text
   +         | bcp14
   +         | cref
   +         | em
   +         | eref
   +         | iref
   +         | relref
   +         | strong
   +         | sub
   +         | sup
   +         | tt
   +         | xref)+)
   +   }

     xref =
       element xref {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute target { xsd:IDREF },
   -     [ a:defaultValue = "false" ] attribute pageno { "true" |
   - "false" }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
   +     attribute pageno { "true" | "false" }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "default" ]
   -     attribute format { "counter" | "title" | "none" | "default"
   +     attribute format { "default" | "title" | "counter" | "none"
   + }?,
   +     attribute derivedContent { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + relref =
   +   element relref {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute target { xsd:IDREF },
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "of" ]
   +     attribute displayFormat { "of" | "comma" | "parens" | "bare"
     }?,
   +     attribute section { text },
   +     attribute relative { text }?,
   +     attribute derivedLink { text }?,
         text
       }
     eref =
       element eref {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute target { text },
         text
       }
     iref =
       element iref {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute item { text },
         [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute subitem { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
         attribute primary { "true" | "false" }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
         empty
       }

That's the whole diff chunk 🌸 more parts are coming, so stay tuned ✨

okay this schema diff is literally a whole glow-up 💅✨ here's the rest of the tea:

     cref =
       element cref {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
         attribute source { text }?,
   -     text
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "true" ]
   +     attribute display { "true" | "false" }?,
   +     (text | em | eref | relref | strong | sub | sup | tt | xref)*
   +   }
   + tt =
   +   element tt {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     (text
   +      | bcp14
   +      | cref
   +      | em
   +      | eref
   +      | iref
   +      | relref
   +      | strong
   +      | sub
   +      | sup
   +      | xref)*
   +   }
   + strong =
   +   element strong {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     (text
   +      | bcp14
   +      | cref
   +      | em
   +      | eref
   +      | iref
   +      | relref
   +      | sub
   +      | sup
   +      | tt
   +      | xref)*
   +   }
   + em =
   +   element em {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     (text
   +      | bcp14
   +      | cref
   +      | eref
   +      | iref
   +      | relref
   +      | strong
   +      | sub
   +      | sup
   +      | tt
   +      | xref)*
   +   }
   + sub =
   +   element sub {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     (text
   +      | bcp14
   +      | cref
   +      | em
   +      | eref
   +      | iref
   +      | relref
   +      | strong
   +      | tt
   +      | xref)*
   +   }
   + sup =
   +   element sup {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     (text
   +      | bcp14
   +      | cref
   +      | em
   +      | eref
   +      | iref
   +      | relref
   +      | strong
   +      | tt
   +      | xref)*
       }

     spanx =
       element spanx {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "preserve" ]
         attribute xml:space { "default" | "preserve" }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "emph" ] attribute style { text }?,
         text
       }
     vspace =
       element vspace {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "0" ] attribute blankLines { text }?,
         empty
       }
     figure =
       element figure {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute title { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
         attribute suppress-title { "true" | "false" }?,
         attribute src { text }?,
   +     attribute originalSrc { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "left" ]
         attribute align { "left" | "center" | "right" }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute alt { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute width { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute height { text }?,
   +     name?,
         iref*,
         preamble?,
   -     artwork,
   +     (artwork | sourcecode)+,
         postamble?
       }

   + table =
   +   element table {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
   +     name?,
   +     iref*,
   +     thead?,
   +     tbody+,
   +     tfoot?
   +   }
     preamble =
   -   element preamble { (text | xref | eref | iref | cref | spanx)* }
   +   element preamble {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     (text
   +      | bcp14
   +      | cref
   +      | em
   +      | eref
   +      | iref
   +      | relref
   +      | spanx
   +      | strong
   +      | sub
   +      | sup
   +      | tt
   +      | xref)*
   +   }

     artwork =
       element artwork {
   -     [ a:defaultValue = "preserve" ]
   -     attribute xml:space { "default" | "preserve" }?,
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:space { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute name { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute type { text }?,
         attribute src { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "left" ]
         attribute align { "left" | "center" | "right" }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute alt { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute width { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute height { text }?,
   -     text*
   +     attribute originalSrc { text }?,
   +     (text* | svg)
   +   }
   + # https://www.rfc-editor.org/materials/format/SVG-1.2-RFC.rnc
   + sourcecode =
   +   element sourcecode {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute name { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute type { text }?,
   +     attribute src { text }?,
   +     attribute originalSrc { text }?,
   +     text
   +   }
   + thead =
   +   element thead {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     tr+
   +   }
   + tbody =
   +   element tbody {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     tr+
   +   }
   + tfoot =
   +   element tfoot {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     tr+
   +   }
   + tr =
   +   element tr {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     (td | th)+
   +   }
   + td =
   +   element td {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "0" ] attribute colspan { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "0" ] attribute rowspan { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "left" ]
   +     attribute align { "left" | "center" | "right" }?,
   +     ((artwork | dl | figure | ol | sourcecode | t | ul)+
   +      | (text
   +         | bcp14
   +         | br
   +         | cref
   +         | em
   +         | eref
   +         | iref
   +         | relref
   +         | strong
   +         | sub
   +         | sup
   +         | tt
   +         | xref)*)
   +   }
   + th =
   +   element th {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "0" ] attribute colspan { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "0" ] attribute rowspan { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "left" ]
   +     attribute align { "left" | "center" | "right" }?,
   +     ((artwork | dl | figure | ol | sourcecode | t | ul)+
   +      | (text
   +         | bcp14
   +         | br
   +         | cref
   +         | em
   +         | eref
   +         | iref
   +         | relref
   +         | strong
   +         | sub
   +         | sup
   +         | tt
   +         | xref)*)
       }
     postamble =
   -   element postamble { (text | xref | eref | iref | cref | spanx)*
   +   element postamble {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     (text | cref | eref | iref | spanx | xref)*
     }
     texttable =
       element texttable {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "" ] attribute title { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "false" ]
         attribute suppress-title { "true" | "false" }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "center" ]
         attribute align { "left" | "center" | "right" }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "full" ]
         attribute style { "all" | "none" | "headers" | "full" }?,
   +     name?,
         preamble?,
         ttcol+,
         c*,
         postamble?
       }
     ttcol =
       element ttcol {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute width { text }?,
         [ a:defaultValue = "left" ]
         attribute align { "left" | "center" | "right" }?,
   +     (cref | eref | iref | xref | text)*
   +   }
   + c =
   +   element c {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     (text | cref | eref | iref | spanx | xref)*
   +   }
   + bcp14 =
   +   element bcp14 {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         text
       }
   - c = element c { (text | xref | eref | iref | cref | spanx)* }
   - back = element back { references*, section* }
   + br =
   +   element br {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     empty
   +   }
   + back =
   +   element back {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     displayreference*,
   +     references*,
   +     section*
   +   }
   + displayreference =
   +   element displayreference {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute target { xsd:IDREF },
   +     attribute to { text }
   +   }
     references =
       element references {
   -     [ a:defaultValue = "References" ] attribute title { text }?,
   -     reference+
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute pn { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID }?,
   +     attribute title { text }?,
   +     name?,
   +     (reference | referencegroup)*
       }
     reference =
       element reference {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute anchor { xsd:ID },
         attribute target { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "true" ]
   +     attribute quoteTitle { "true" | "false" }?,
         front,
   -     seriesInfo*,
   -     format*,
   -     annotation*
   +     (annotation | format | refcontent | seriesInfo)*
   +   }
   + referencegroup =
   +   element referencegroup {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     attribute anchor { xsd:ID },
   +     reference+
       }
     seriesInfo =
       element seriesInfo {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute name { text },
         attribute value { text },
   +     attribute asciiName { text }?,
   +     attribute asciiValue { text }?,
   +     attribute status { text }?,
   +     [ a:defaultValue = "IETF" ]
   +     attribute stream { "IETF" | "IAB" | "IRTF" | "independent" }?,
         empty
       }
     format =
       element format {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
         attribute target { text }?,
         attribute type { text },
         attribute octets { text }?,
         empty
       }

     annotation =
   -   element annotation { (text | xref | eref | iref | cref |
   - spanx)* }
   -   start = rfc
   +   element annotation {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     (text
   +      | bcp14
   +      | cref
   +      | em
   +      | eref
   +      | iref
   +      | relref
   +      | spanx
   +      | strong
   +      | sub
   +      | sup
   +      | tt
   +      | xref)*
   +   }
   + refcontent =
   +   element refcontent {
   +     attribute xml:base { text }?,
   +     attribute xml:lang { text }?,
   +     (text | bcp14 | em | strong | sub | sup | tt)*
   +   }
   + start |= rfc

IAB Members at the Time of Approval ✨

okay so bestie, here's who was on the IAB when this memo got approved 🧚 they're listed in alphabetical order, so no drama, just vibes:

Jari Arkko
Ralph Droms
Ted Hardie
Joe Hildebrand
Russ Housley
Lee Howard
Erik Nordmark
Robert Sparks
Andrew Sullivan
Dave Thaler
Martin Thomson
Brian Trammell
Suzanne Woolf

Acknowledgements 🫶

ngl this part is so sweet 🥹 thank you to literally everyone who looked over this document and gave feedback and/or wrote spec text. a huge shoutout goes to Julian Reschke for editing [RFC7749] 👑 and to everyone who gave feedback on that one too, because that's a whole team effort, periodt 💅

we also have to thank Marshall T. Rose for both the original design and the reference implementation of the xml2rfc processor 🎀 the whole RFC world runs on that tool, so he's an absolute icon 🌈

Author's Address 🦋

this is where you can find the author! 💖 Paul Hoffman, over at ICANN ✨

Email: paul.hoffman@icann.org 💌

📦 where this page comes from

ietf: rfc7991 2016-12
💖 girlified by claude-haiku-5-5 on 2026-10-18: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms

RFC 7991

RFC 7991: The "xml2rfc" Version 3 Vocabulary 💖

Abstract ✨

Status of This Memo 🌈

Copyright Notice 💜

Table of Contents 📑

1. Introduction ✨

1.1. Expected Updates to the Specification 🔮

1.2. Design Criteria for the Changes in v3 ✨

1.3. Differences from v2 to v3 🌈

1.3.1. New Elements in v3 ✨

1.3.2. New Attributes for Existing Elements 💜

1.3.3. Elements and Attributes Deprecated from v2 🥀

1.3.4. Additional Changes from v2 🧚

1.4. Syntax Notation 🧾

2. Elements 💖

2.1. <abstract> 📝

2.1.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔖

2.2. <address> 📮

2.3. <annotation>

2.4. <area>

2.5. <artwork>

2.5.1. "align" Attribute

2.5.2. "alt" Attribute

2.5.3. "anchor" Attribute

2.5.4. "height" Attribute

2.5.5. "name" Attribute

2.5.6. "src" Attribute

2.5.7. "type" Attribute

2.5.8. "width" Attribute

2.5.9. "xml:space" Attribute

2.6. <aside>

2.6.1. "anchor" Attribute

2.7. <author>

2.7.1. "asciiFullname" Attribute

2.7.2. "asciiInitials" Attribute

2.7.3. "asciiSurname" Attribute

2.7.4. "fullname" Attribute

2.7.5. "initials" Attribute

2.7.6. "role" Attribute

2.7.7. "surname" Attribute

2.8. <back>

2.9. <bcp14>

2.10. <blockquote> 💬

2.10.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔖

2.10.2. "cite" Attribute 🔗

2.10.3. "quotedFrom" Attribute ✍️

2.11. <boilerplate> 📜

2.12. <br> 🍓

2.13. <city> 🏙️

2.13.1. "ascii" Attribute 🔤

2.14. <code> 🔢

2.14.1. "ascii" Attribute 🔤

2.15. <country> 🌍

2.15.1. "ascii" Attribute 🔤

2.16. <cref> 🗒️

2.16.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔖

2.16.2. "display" Attribute 👁️

2.16.3. "source" Attribute 🫂

2.17. <date> 📅

2.17.1. "day" Attribute 🗓️

2.17.2. "month" Attribute 🌙

2.17.3. "year" Attribute ⭐

2.18. <dd> 📝

2.18.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔖

2.19. <displayreference> 🪄

2.19.1. "target" Attribute (Mandatory) 🎯

2.19.2. "to" Attribute (Mandatory) 💌

2.20. <dl> 📖

2.20.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔖

2.20.2. "hanging" Attribute 🪧

2.20.3. "spacing" Attribute 📏

2.21. <dt> 🏷️

2.21.1. "anchor" Attribute 🔖

2.22. <em> ✨

2.23. <email> 💌

2.23.1. "ascii" Attribute

2.24. <eref> 🔗

2.24.1. "target" Attribute (Mandatory) 🎯

2.25. <figure> 🖼️

2.1. `<abstract>` 📝

2.1.1. `"anchor"` Attribute 🔖

2.2. `<address>` 📮

2.3. `<annotation>`

2.4. `<area>`

2.5. `<artwork>`

2.6. `<aside>`

2.7. `<author>`

2.8. `<back>`

2.9. `<bcp14>`

2.10. `<blockquote>` 💬

2.11. `<boilerplate>` 📜

2.12. `<br>` 🍓

2.13. `<city>` 🏙️

2.14. `<code>` 🔢

2.15. `<country>` 🌍

2.16. `<cref>` 🗒️

2.17. `<date>` 📅

2.18. `<dd>` 📝

2.19. `<displayreference>` 🪄

2.20. `<dl>` 📖

2.21. `<dt>` 🏷️

2.22. `<em>` ✨

2.23. `<email>` 💌

2.24. `<eref>` 🔗

2.25. `<figure>` 🖼️

2.26. `<front>` 📜

2.27. `<iref>` 📇

2.28. `<keyword>` 🔑

2.29. `<li>` 🍓

2.30. `<link>` 🔗

2.31. `<middle>` 🧁