Re: anchor parameter, was: Last Call: draft-nottingham-http-link-header (Web Linking) to Proposed Standard

Ian Hickson wrote:
> ...
>> Could you please elaborate what the "right" effect is, and how current 
>> implementations fail for that?
> 
> Well unless I'm mistaken, if we have a resource A that has:
> 
>    Link: <B>; rel=stylesheet; anchor=C
> 
> ...then that means we have a link:
> 
>    C - stylesheet - B
> 
> ...which means that applying the style sheet to A would be wrong. Yet that 
> is what UAs that support Link: would presumably do.

Of the five UAs I checked, two seem to implement the Link header. Both 
fail to consider the anchor.

To make Link headers useful in processing by HTML user agents, lots of 
additional implementation work is needed anyway; so I don't see this as 
a big problem.

That being said, it probably would be good if the spec gave an example 
that anchor can be more than a fragment identifier, and thus recipients 
need to handle it -- it's not optional.

>> It appears to me that anchor is not relevant for every single link 
>> relation, but that doesn't mean it's not useful at all.
> 
> I don't see how it can't be relevant... if the link relation is between 
> two resources, then acting as if it was a relationship between others 
> seems wrong.

Right; it *is* relevant if it's more than a fragment identifier, and it 
would be good if the spec stated that clearly.

BR, Julian

Received on Sunday, 2 August 2009 10:47:52 UTC