Re: 4. ID assignment and the empty string

Ian,

The Core WG discussed this issue again today and have decided to make
two small changes to the draft which we believe may clarify the
specification and satisfy your comment.

1. Rather than speaking of "ID assignment", the specification now
speaks of "ID type assignment":

  [Definition: The process of ID type assignment causes an xml:id
  attribute value to be an ID.] This is often achieved by changing the
  type of the attribute to be "ID" in the infoset or PSVI, but that is
  not the only possible mechanism.

2. We added a note to make it clear that application behavior (e.g.,
whether or not the getElementById() function actually accepts the
empty string as a legitimate value) is beyond the scope of this
specification.

  Note:
  Application-level processing of IDs, including which elements can
  actually be addressed by which ID values, is beyond the scope of
  this specification.

You will be able to see these changes reflected in the proposed CR
draft at http://www.w3.org/XML/Group/2005/02/CR-xml-id-20050208/
sometime within the next few hours.

Please let us know if this change satisfies your comment. (Our CR
decision call is tomorrow morning, so a prompt reply would be most
appreciated.)

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

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