Applications process documents that use XML NAMESPACES in almost exactly the same way they process documents that don’t use XML namespaces. For example, if a namespace-unaware APPLICATION adds a new sales order to a database when it encounters a Sales Order element, the equivalent namespace-aware application does the same. The only difference is that the namespace-aware application:
* Might need to check for xmlns ATTRIBUTES and parse qualified names. WHETHER it does this depends on whether such processing is ALREADY done by lower-level software, such as a namespace-aware DOM implementation.
* Uses universal (two-part) names instead of local (one-part) names.

Applications process documents that use XML namespaces in almost exactly the same way they process documents that don’t use XML namespaces. For example, if a namespace-unaware application adds a new sales order to a database when it encounters a Sales Order element, the equivalent namespace-aware application does the same. The only difference is that the namespace-aware application:
* Might need to check for xmlns attributes and parse qualified names. Whether it does this depends on whether such processing is already done by lower-level software, such as a namespace-aware DOM implementation.
* Uses universal (two-part) names instead of local (one-part) names.