comment on RFC 2396 wrt URI-reference

It seems to me, in considering points raised in the "Are URI-References bound 
to resources?" thread, that some subtleties might be a bit more clear if  
changes along the following lines were made to RFC 2396 (i.e. in a future 
revision of that doc, if any)..

                                  .
                                  .
                                  .
4. URI References

   The term "URI-reference" is used here to denote the common usage of a
       ^^^^                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^       ^
     production                 (delete)          s

   resource identifier.  A URI reference may be absolute or relative,
                       ^
       The term "URI reference" is a casual (i.e. natural
       language) description for artifacts that are parsable
       using the "URI-reference" production.


   and may have additional information attached in the form of a
   fragment identifier.  However, "the URI" that results from such a
   reference includes only the absolute URI after the fragment
   identifier (if any) is removed and after any relative URI is resolved
   to its absolute form.  Although it is possible to limit the
   discussion of URI syntax and semantics to that of the absolute
   result, most usage of URI is within general URI references, and it is
   impossible to obtain the URI from such a reference without also
   parsing the fragment and resolving the relative form.

      URI-reference = [ absoluteURI | relativeURI ] [ "#" fragment ]
      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                               (delete)


add:             URI = absoluteURI | relativeURI

add:   URI-reference = [ URI ] [ "#" fragment ]

                                  .
                                  .
                                  .
 
It seems to me that the above suggested re-write of the URI-reference 
production, and the additions to the preceding text, would make it easier & 
clearer to talk about "URI" artifacts and "URI-reference" artifacts and their 
different abstract semantics.

Also, the _term_ "URI reference" isn't defined prior to section 4 (wherein it 
is only tangentially defined, imho). Terms that are also used in sections 
prior to section 4 whose explicit definition would help the document convey 
it's rather abstract notions to the reader are: "document" and "reference". 
Explicitly defining how those terms are used and what their semantics are in 
the context of URI and URI-reference artifacts are, would be immensely helpful 
to readers.

thanks,

JeffH
































JeffH

Received on Friday, 1 June 2001 14:56:33 UTC