RE: Fwd: A sort of synthesis

I suspect that XPath works for pure XML change-tracking, although I have a question.  

I am not conversant enough with XPath to see whether it can isolate a point *within* a text node.  My superficial examination of XPath 1.0/2.0 suggests that there is no path expression into the interior of a text node.  Is that considered a problem here, or is there a well-known way of addressing that?

 - Dennis

PS:
One reason for external tracking, if I wasn't clear about it, is to preserve any DSig on the original.  The combination might then be signed by the source of the changes and this can be recursive.  The downside is that one can't have the default interpretation of the document, ignoring the external changes, be the form that is seen with all changes accepted.  (Think about a contract offer and its
back-and-forth markup.  Another case would be turnaround documents that are rendered as forms, but the form itself is immutable [signed] and the field entries are handled in a manner akin to changes.  There's a special case of this last case in how Microsoft Office projects visible signature images onto signature-block fields of digitally-signed OOXML documents.)

The use case of concern for me, along with the above consideration, is for documents whose models are such that a perceived change effectively severs (cross-cuts) elements in the underlying XML, splicing parts from different elements into single ones across the scar where the severed pieces come together.  (There is a comparable insertion case.)  I don't expect that to be an use case for this project; I'm watching for anything that might be adaptable for that, though.  XPath might still serve in such elaborate cases.

 - Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Claudius Teodorescu [mailto:claudius.teodorescu@gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2013 09:20
To: Randall Leeds
Cc: liam@w3.org; dennis.hamilton@acm.org; public-change@w3.org
Subject: Re: Fwd: A sort of synthesis

A good representation of changes can be in or out of the respective document.


For out case, doesn't seem to pose so many difficulties.


As to the inside XML document case ... what if we can design something we can call "change tracking instructions", in order to graciously store metadata about changes inside the document?


Claudius


P. S. For Dennis E. Hamilton: I would specify the tracked changes by using XPath.



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Received on Monday, 11 March 2013 18:43:12 UTC