WD-webarch-20031209: Consistency of fragment identifiers

Section 3.3.2, para 3 ("On the other hand ...") says "it is considered
an error if the semantics of the fragment identifiers used in two
representations of a secondary resource are inconsistent."  What does
"inconsistent" mean here?  How do the responsible parties determine
whether a given plan of using fragment identifiers is or is not
compliant with this rule?

Suppose that an internet media type (application/my-magic-mediatype)
is defined with the basic rule that it is represented by servers as an
XML data stream rooted in a particular namespace (e.g. one for
purchase orders), and that its fragment identifers are syntactically
identical to those of the application/xml media type, but denote not
individual XML elements or attributes but instead whatever real-world
objects are represented by those elements or attributes (a customer,
an invoice, a payment obligation, ...), if any, or else have no
denotation.

Suppose further that a resource owner serves the same octet sequence
as two different media types (e.g. application/xml and
application/my-magic-mediatype).  Is the resource owner (a) obeying
the principle enunciated here, given that the denotations of the
fragment identifier in the two cases stand in a predictable and
plausible relation to each other? or (b) violating this principle,
given that in the two cases the fragment identifier identifies objects
of radically different classes (XML elements on the one hand, people
and other non-XML entities on the other)?

Received on Thursday, 4 March 2004 18:20:14 UTC