xml:id and Canonical XML

Elliotte sent this to the xml:id comments list. I think we'll need to
talk about it on Wednesday.

AFAICS, it's not our problem to fix (the canonicalization spec is
broken) but I think Elliotte is right, we do owe the reader a pointer
to the problem.

/ Elliotte Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu> was heard to say:
| I just noticed a major conceptual mismatch between canonical XML and
| xml:id. The problem occurs when calculating the canonical form of a
| document subset. The issue is that each nearest attribute in the XML
| namespace are added to elements from the subset if the original ancestor
| elements that provided those attributes are not present. For instance,
| consider this document:
|
| <root xml:id="p1">
|    <child />
| </root>
|
| Now suppose we canonicalize this document with the XPath expression //child
| to select a subset. Then resulting canonical form is:
|
| <child xml:id="p1"></child>
|
| Worse yet, suppose we start with this input document and use the same XPath
| expression:
|
| <root xml:id="p1">
|    <child />
|    <child />
|    <child />
| </root>
|
| What comes out is:
|
| <child xml:id="p1"></child>
| <child xml:id="p1"></child>
| <child xml:id="p1"></child>
|
| Duplicate IDs!
|
| I think the canonical XML spec clearly intended that all attributes in the
| XML namespace have scope over their descendants, but that's not really true
| for xml:id.
|
| This probably has downstream implications for XML digital signatures and
| XML encryption, both of which depend on canonicalization.
|
| Exclusive XML canonicalization does not inherit xml: attributes, and so
| does not have this problem.
|
| I am not sure what to suggest as a fix. It is still possible to
| canonicalize a document that uses xml:id. However, the results could be
| quite unexpected and perhaps dangerous.
|
| I wish I had a good answer here. I don't. I do think this should be
| discussed, and whatever resolution is reached needs to be called out in the
| spec to warn people about this.
|
| -- 
| Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo@metalab.unc.edu
| XML in a Nutshell 3rd Edition Just Published!
| http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian3/
| http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596007647/cafeaulaitA/ref=nosim

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman.Walsh@Sun.COM / XML Standards Architect / Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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