diff -ur PyXML-0.8.4.orig/xml/sax/saxutils.py PyXML-0.8.4/xml/sax/saxutils.py
--- PyXML-0.8.4.orig/xml/sax/saxutils.py	2004-11-11 19:02:46.097146160 +0100
+++ PyXML-0.8.4/xml/sax/saxutils.py	2004-11-11 19:07:44.566771880 +0100
@@ -514,10 +514,11 @@
 
     if source.getByteStream() is None:
         sysid = source.getSystemId()
-        if os.path.isfile(sysid):
-            basehead = os.path.split(os.path.normpath(base))[0]
-            source.setSystemId(os.path.join(basehead, sysid))
-            f = open(sysid, "rb")
+        basehead = os.path.dirname(os.path.normpath(base))
+        sysidfilename = os.path.join(basehead, sysid)
+        if os.path.isfile(sysidfilename):
+            source.setSystemId(sysidfilename)
+            f = open(sysidfilename, "rb")
         else:
             source.setSystemId(urlparse.urljoin(base, sysid))
             f = urllib2.urlopen(source.getSystemId())