On 1/21/06, James Britt <ruby / jamesbritt.com> wrote:
> Paul Duncan wrote:
> ...
>
> > Note the addition of an XML declaration after the document type
> > declaration.  While the XHTML spec doesn't _require_ an XML declaration,
> > it strongly recommends it, especially if the document is being served
> > with a content type of 'text/html'.  I haven't changed the default
> > Content-Type for XHTML output from the default value of 'text/html';
> > I'll elaborate on that a bit more later.  I've also deliberately put the
> > XML declaration after the DOCTYPE declaration.  Even though my spidey
> > sense tells me that it should be the other way around, the spec does not
> > appear to require the XML declaration before the DOCTYPE declaration
> > and, more importantly, certain browsers (hello, Internet Explorer!)
> > behave incorrectly if the DOCTYPE declaration doesn't come first.
>
> If I understand the XML prolog production rule correctly, the (optional)
> XML decl must come before the doctype decl
>
> prolog  ::= XMLDecl? Misc* (doctypedecl Misc*)?
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#NT-prolog
>

I've always simply left the XML declaration off, since it melts
Internet Explorer.
I think it's better to omit it than to put it in a nonstandard location.