Firstly, when you say "parser", I suspect you mean 
"XSLT processor". (It's a common mistake, but in cases like this it's important 
to be precise).
 
Secondly, you say that the namespace is being removed from 
these elements, but I don't think that's true: they are still in the same 
namespace, only the prefix has changed. Correct me if I have 
misunderstood.
 
For better or worse, the digital signature mechanisms 
follow XML Canonicalization by deciding that namespace prefixes are significant: 
see
 
http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n#NoNSPrefixRewriting
 
for discussion.
 
XSLT 2.0 gives you complete control over the prefixes that 
are used in your result tree. XSLT 1.0 gives the implementation a lot of 
discretion in theory, but in practice it is usually possible to persuade the 
processor to use the prefixes that you want.
 
Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/


  
  
  From: Anishek Agarwal 
  [mailto:anishek@g...] 
Sent: 06 August 2008 05:54
To: 
  xml-dev@l...
Subject: [xml-dev] XML 
  Transformation


  
  Hello,
I have a third party incoming XML at the transport 
  layer which has a structure as below

<d:a xmlns:a="...." 
  xmlns:dsig="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
.....
.....
<dsig:Signature xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#"> 
  (the dsig namespace is applied to all child elements as 
  well)
......
.....
</dsig:Signature>
</d:a>


When 
  my parser is parsing the xml this is what i am getting 

<d:a 
  xmlns:a="...." xmlns:dsig="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
.....
.....
<Signature 
  xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#"> 
  (the dsig namespace is removed from all the child 
  elements)
......
.....
</Signature>
</d:a>

Then 
  when i try to validate the signature it fails. The partner is saying that i 
  have wrongly parsed the xml. They calculated the digest with the "dsig" prefix 
  in their xml where as i am calcuating it after removing "dsig" namespace as 
  there is a default namespace and thus the parser overrides the parent  
  namespace declaration. 

Which one is correct, should my parser have 
  retained the "dsig" namespace even though a default namespace is defined or i 
  am doing the right thing?

We are using apache axis 1.3 for parsing the 
  xml which is comming over SOAP.

thanks in advance for the 
  help

Regards,
Anishek