[Bug 1524] propose new function fn:escape-html-uri

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=1524





------- Additional Comments From mike@saxonica.com  2005-07-22 17:05 -------
Here's an attempt to clarify this confusing subject.

Currently, the serialization specification, when describing URI escaping for the
HTML output method, does indeed contain a reference to XLink; but the detailed
algorithm described is actually by design identical to that described in
Appendix B.2.1 of the HTML 4.01 specification:

http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/appendix/notes.html#non-ascii-chars

People have often asked why we escape non-ASCII characters rather than escaping
the characters listed in the XLink specification; it seems useful therefore to
reference the HTML algorithm rather than the XLink algorithm, since that is the
one we are using. (The practical reason for choosing this algorithm is that
using the XLink algorithm doesn't work: in particular, it breaks many Javascript
URIs in typical browsers).

This proposal (which the WGs have accepted) makes the algorithm which is
currently built-in to the serializer available as a user-callable function, so
that applications can invoke it when they need it and use a different algorithm
when they don't. As a result of this proposal, there is a new F+O function which
refers to the HTML 4.01 specification, and the serialization specification will
refer to this new F+O function to describe the default serialization behavior.

Does this make things clearer?

Michael Kay (personal response)

Received on Friday, 22 July 2005 17:05:58 UTC