NIST test 33 and non-existent subresources

NIST test 33 points to a subresource that doesn't exist using an element 
scheme:

<include xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
       href="../ents/ptrtst.xml#element(chapter)"/>

It claims this is a fatal error. I don't think this is obvious based on 
section 4.1. Since an XPointer may select multiple nodes from an XML 
document, it seems reasonale that it may also select nothing. The 
XPointer element framework spec states "failure to identify an element 
results simply in no subresource being identified by this pointer part 
rather than an XPointer Framework error." Thus I'm not sure that this 
should really throw a fatal error rather than simply including nothing. 
If it is the intention that this throw a fatal error, then section 4.1 
of the XInclude spec should spell this out more explicitly.

--
Elliotte Rusty Harold

Received on Saturday, 7 June 2003 15:32:33 UTC