HTML WG last call comments on http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-xinclude-20010516

2. Terminology
synonyn => synonym

A reference to the defining instance of 'information set' would be useful
here.

3. Syntax
Refered => referred

4.2 Included items when parse="xml"
    "Resources that are unavailable for any reason (for example
    the resource doesn't exist, connection difficulties or security
    restrictions prevent it from being fetched, the URI
    scheme isn't a fetchable one, or a syntax error in an XPointer)
    result in an error."

We couldn't find any definition of what an "error" is, and what happens to
processing in error cases.

We see a number of use cases for Xinclude in XHTML. One of the major uses
today for similar functionality is page counters (using an image). We hope
that Xinclude would be able to replace this clumsy technique.

However if the unavailability of the counter resource would mean that you
could not view the including page, we, and many millions of others, would be
very upset. A good possibility here would be to give the <xi:include>
element non-empty content. Then if the resource is unavailable, the
alternative content of the element could be used instead.

4.2.5 Attribute and Namespace Declaration Information Items
There should be a definition, or pointer to a definition, for "attribute
node" and "namespace node"

4.3. Included Items when parse="text"
"if the media type of the file" => "if the media type of the resource" (you
might want to check other uses of the word 'file' too).

Example right above 4.4.1: "xmlns:xinclude" should be "xmlns:xi".

4.4.3.2. Base URI
We can identify use cases for using the base URI of the including document
as well as the included document. Especially considering that server-side
includes as they exist today use the including document as base, we would
like to see the option of specifying which base is used.

Appendix C.

It would be nice to see an example where a 'real' text file is being
included.

How about:

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<document xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/1999/XML/xinclude">
  <p>This document has been accessed
  <xi:include href="count.txt" parse="text"/> times</p>
</document>

where count.txt contains (for instance):

    324387

Recursive include
A correspondent points out that despite your rules for recursive inclusions,
with judicious use of scripting you could still generate a recursive
inclusion.

A smaller issue is styling. What should the processor do when a style sheet
is included? This shouldn't be a problem with an embedded
<style> element, since anyplace except at the top of the document would
create an invalid document. As for linking,

<blockquote cite="http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-stylesheet/">
   The xml-stylesheet processing instruction is allowed only in
   the prolog of an XML document. The syntax of XML constrains
   where processing instructions are allowed in the prolog; the
   xml-stylesheet processing instruction is allowed anywhere in
   the prolog that meets these constraints.
</blockquote>

Best wishes,

Steven Pemberton
For the HTML WG
(These remarks are from the WG, so please Cc: w3c-html-wg@w3.org as well in
any replies)

Received on Wednesday, 6 June 2001 08:57:49 UTC