Re: Options for dealing with IDs

On Thursday, January 9, 2003, 7:28:50 PM, Claude wrote:

BCLL> Someone please explain why this isn't a realistic 
BCLL> option given an on-demand scenario.  If the DTD/Schema 
BCLL> were ALWAYS processed, I agree that is a bad thing.
Yes.

BCLL> The one thing that jumps out at me is that requiring 
BCLL> a DTD or Schema just to get at ID declarations is 
BCLL> a heavy requirement given that the number of 
BCLL> applications that use IDs is large,

Exactly.

BCLL> so this can in fact, become a virtual requirement to always get
BCLL> the DTD/Schema.

BCLL> Is that it?

Yes. I think you just explained why it wasn't realistic very well -
the number of applications that need to know IDness is very large, so
requiring them to fetch an external DTD is to heavy and requiring all
instances to start with a substantial internal subset of 60 or so
<!ATTLIST foo ID #IMPLIED> for all values of foo is also too heavy.

What is needed is a simple and lightweight method of determining
IDness for well-formed instances. Making it upwards compatible when
either of DTD or Schema validation (or both) is then performed, is
clearly desirable for interoperability.

BCLL> len

BCLL> From: Tim Bray [mailto:tbray@textuality.com]

BCLL> Isn't this a variation of #1?  I.e. it requires that interoperable 
BCLL> processing requires fetching and looking in a DTD.  So probably not 
BCLL> realistic.



-- 
 Chris                            mailto:chris@w3.org