[URN] Potential inconsistency between URL and URN syntaxes...
Daniel LaLiberte (liberte@ncsa.uiuc.edu)
Wed, 18 Dec 1996 09:59:50 -0600 (CST)
From: Daniel LaLiberte <liberte@ncsa.uiuc.edu>
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 09:59:50 -0600 (CST)
Message-Id: <199612181559.JAA04091@void.ncsa.uiuc.edu>
To: Ryan Moats <jayhawk@ds.internic.net>
Cc: uri@bunyip.com, urn-ietf@bunyip.com
Subject: [URN] Potential inconsistency between URL and URN syntaxes...
In-Reply-To: <32B80993.5785@ds.internic.net>
Ryan Moats writes:
> However, in the latest draft URN syntax spec (circulating on the urn
> mailing list), the syntax for a URN is
>
> > "urn:" <NID> ":" <NSS>
>
> I don't beleive that the URN specification "can be used in any data
> field that might otherwise hold a URL" as it currently stands (If
> somebody thinks otherwise, please let me know).
I think otherwise. I don't see anything wrong with this syntax -
consider that the scheme name for this whole class of URNs is called
"urn", and thus "urn:" preceeds the rest of the identifier.
You were not specific about what the nature of the conflict is.
If "urn:" were optional (which is a subject still open for debate, I
presume), we may have a conflict. The general URI syntax allows the
"<scheme name>:" prefix to be optional, and more of the prefix can be
left out, but then we might have a relative URI, which has different
semantics. With no "urn:", the <NID> would actually function as the
scheme name since it indicates how to interpret the <NSS>. But this
is true even with a required "urn:" prefix since we want URNs to be
independent of the resolution mechanism.
I'm not clear whether you believe URNs *should* be used in any data
field that might otherwise hold a URL, independent of whether they
in fact can. I believe they should.
--
Daniel LaLiberte (liberte@ncsa.uiuc.edu)
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
http://union.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~liberte/