Re: CSS ID, xml:id confusion

On Thu, 30 Jun 2005, Orion Adrian wrote:
> 
> What is a CSS ID (the one referenced by #)?

CSS is a little muddled in how it presents it but the key term in the 
CSS2.1 spec is "of type ID".


> What is an xml:id?

The xml:id spec says that xml:id is of type ID.


Note that xml:id explicitly says that no change is required to CSS 
processors or to the CSS spec (appendix C bullet point 5). Note also that 
CSS2.1 explicitly mentions xml:id as being a source of IDs (5.9 last 
paragraph). Note finally that the W3C Selectors test suite already 
contains a test that that includes xml:id (test 15c).

The request that started this thread is not about making the specs 
clearer; the specs are fine. The request is about making the CSS spec 
somehow endorse the xml:id spec.

Personally I agree with Bjoern and David (amongst others), and consider 
the concept of one spec endorsing another to be silly and inappropriate. 

As it happens, that is the current position of the CSSWG as a whole: the 
topic was recently raised and resolved in a face-to-face meeting. At the 
time the discussion was about requiring support for particular bitmap 
image formats, but the resulting discussion was a generic one and not tied 
to endorsing particular types of specs; it applies to endorsing xml:id 
just as much as to endorsing PNG or JPEG.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Friday, 1 July 2005 02:38:08 UTC