Re: A proposed solution

David Turner wrote:

> Based on the above discussion, the proposal is to clarify the wording
> of this paragraph in the XML NS spec [1] to instead of saying:
>
> [[[Definition: URI references which identify namespaces are considered
> identical when they are exactly the same character-for-character. Note
> that URI references which are not identical in this sense may in fact be
> functionally equivalent. Examples include URI references which differ
> only in case, or which are in external entities which have different
> effective base URIs.]]]
>
> instead to say:
>
> [[[According to RFC 2396 a URI reference can be either a relative or an
> absolute URI. The scheme of an absolute URI identifies the URI space to
> which that URI belongs. A URI space is typically defined with a set of
> properties concerning uniqueness, normalization rules etc. as well as
> one or more default mechanisms for resolving URIs belonging to that URI
> space.
>
> Relative URIs are always defined within a context. Typical examples are
> relative references within the current document (fragment identifiers)
> and relative references between documents at the same or closely related
> level of hierarchy in the URI space. Within the same context, relative
> links remain internally consistent and can act as unique identifiers
> (within that context) without actually being expanded relative to the
> context within which they are defined.
>
> An application is responsible for knowing the context within which a
> relative link is defined. RFC 2396, section 5, provides several
> mechanisms for establishing the proper context within which relative
> URIs are defined. An application is also responsible for ensuring that
> relative identifiers are not treated as unique identifiers across
> contexts as ignorance of context can make distinct identifiers appear
> undifferentiated.]]]

I'm confused.  The old wording told me quite explicitly when two URI references
that identify namespaces are identical.  The new one doesn't.   The uniqueness
test in Sec. 5.3, case 2, is based on "namespace names that are identical''.

Since this proposal has received a warm reception, there must be some
information here that some people are implicitly assuming about how
identicality of namespace names is now to be defined.  Can anyone supply it?

Perhaps I'm just missing something obvious, but it seems to me that the new
wording needs to say somewhere that "two namespace names are identical when
[whatever]".

Paul Abrahams

Received on Tuesday, 13 June 2000 17:58:46 UTC