Re: Changing base URIs

> I've been thinking about the extension functions proposal though, and
> I don't see how it can work. All of our variables are strings. What
> arguments does the function take?

I don't think this is a problem: the argument is a node, presumably
coming down a pipe to p:variable or p:with-option.  Typically it
will be / (or ., or omitted) to get the base uri of the document:

  <p:with-option name="base" select="p:base-uri(/)">
    <p:pipe .../>
  </p:with-option>

The first couple of function are straightforward:

  p:base-uri(node n) or p:base-uri()
    returns (as a string) the base URI of its argument n, or of the
    context node if no argument is given.  It is an error [what kind?]
    if the argument is not a node.

We probably need to say what the base URI is of the "empty document
nodes" that are the context node in some circumstances.  And is it
possible for an implementation to be processing a document for which
it does not have a base URI?  (RFC 2396 and presumably its successors
make the base URI application dependent in some circumstances.)

  p:resolve-uri(string rel, string base)
  p:resolve-uri(string rel)
    returns (as a string) the result of resolving the URI reference
    argument rel against the absolute URI reference argument base.
    If only one argument is given, it is resolved against the
    base URI of the context node.
    It is an error [what kind?] if either argument is not a valid
    URI reference, or if base is not absolute, or an error occurs
    in the resolution process.

These functions correspond to XPath 2's similarly named functions.

I suggested the use of a relativize function to obtain the final
path component of a URI, but this only works if you have the directory
part, and I'm not sure why I was thinking that would be easy.
(Note that the base URI of http://example.com/foo/bar.html is itself,
not http://example.com/foo/)

Does anyone know of an existing library that provides a function
to get the last component?  In any case, it seems as if it might
be dangerous to use it indiscrimately - what if the URL has an
empty last component?

-- Richard

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Received on Thursday, 10 April 2008 13:15:17 UTC