Re: Feeling stupid about references

On Friday, June 21, 2013 at 11:50 PM, Shane McCarron wrote:
> Is there a ReSpec reference syntax that can get me a specific version of a spec? I know that there used to be just lots of entries (for XML, for example). Is there a way to say [XML:specific-revision] and have the reference in the text say XML but the data for the reference be some revision? Maybe that is a way to allow me to add a labelled version to the repository by hand that I can reference and share with others who need to reference it before it is actually published. The alternative is that we be aware of every spec that is going to be published around the same time and ensure all the editors of those specs know that some reference they are making is going to change and they need to do something local to change it... That just feels like it is not going to scale.
Yes there is. 

The `versions` property lets you define multiple versions of a spec. Right now, it's automatically filled it up with each new version of a spec, but there's definitely room there to add pre-pub info.

The versions are accessible by suffixing the shortname with a hyphen and the key used in the version object. So although there is no entry named `html-rdfa-20130207`, you'll still be able to access that particular dated version:

    http://specref.jit.su/bibrefs?refs=html-rdfa-20130207

Contrast the output with:

    http://specref.jit.su/bibrefs?refs=html-rdfa
 
We could very well imagine some form of convention (and even specific modifications to the API's src code) to deal with shipping cross-referenced specs at the same time.

Note that any key is accepted, so you're able to use this system to give access to different editions of the same spec, e.g.:

    http://specref.jit.su/bibrefs?refs=xhtml11-2e
    http://specref.jit.su/bibrefs?refs=xhtml11-1e

Hope this helps.

--tobie

Received on Friday, 21 June 2013 22:43:39 UTC