[Vtd-xml-users] Name space qualification Exception: Element not qualified

[Computer C. C. <in...@Co...>]

VTD-XML version is 2.9

It looks as parsing throws an error when a prefix is defined at the top level instead of at the element itself:

I have the following XML and Java code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ODM xmlns="http://www.cdisc.org/ns/odm/v1.3"
     xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
     xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
     xmlns:sdm="http://www.cdisc.org/ns/studydesign/v1.0">
     <Study OID="Study1">
      <MetaDataVersion OID="MV.001" Name="first">
       <StudyEventDef OID="SE.001" Name="first visit">
        <sdm:ActivityRef ActivityOID="ACT.001"/>
       </StudyEventDef>
      </MetaDataVersion>
     </Study>
</ODM>

The sdm: prefix is defined at the top level.

When I parse using (Java):
VTDGen vg = new VTDGen();
  vg.setDoc(xmlBytes);
  try {
   vg.parse(true); // namespace aware
  } catch (EOFException eof) {
   eof.printStackTrace();
  } catch (ParseException pe) {
   pe.printStackTrace();
  }

I get an error:
com.ximpleware.ParseException: Name space qualification Exception: Element not qualified
Line Number: 3 Offset: 9
at com.ximpleware.VTDGen.qualifyElement(VTDGen.java:4502)
at com.ximpleware.VTDGen.parse(VTDGen.java:2724

When my XML however is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ODM xmlns="http://www.cdisc.org/ns/odm/v1.3"
     xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
     xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
     <Study OID="Study1">
      <MetaDataVersion OID="MV.001" Name="first">
       <StudyEventDef OID="SE.001" Name="first visit">
        <sdm:ActivityRef ActivityOID="ACT.001" xmlns:sdm="http://www.cdisc.org/ns/studydesign/v1.0"/>
       </StudyEventDef>
      </MetaDataVersion>
     </Study>
</ODM>

so defining the prefix at the element level itself.
In this case it parses well, there is no error thrown.

Is this a bug? Or am I missing something?
If it is a bug, is there a workaround?

Many thanks in advance

Jozef