Editorial Convention Rules #2

One thing I realized that was causing me difficulties is our reliance upon
the terms "algorithm" and "value" that appear in the actual element names --
other times they are nested elements, or other times attributes (sometimes
called type, sometimes call name)! The reason this first happened was
because the "algorithm" and "value" information was moved from the signature
element and placed in sign_info for processing purposes. I think this is
ugly, and would've preferred something else (with a perhaps slightly more
complex set of processing rules) but acknowledging what we have now, there's
another proposal below. A bit different than my first.

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-ietf-xmldsig/1999OctDec/0073.html
I really don't like either and wish we could remove "algorithm" and "value"
from the actual element name, but then SignatureAlgorithm and SignatureValue
would still present an inconsistency.  I hope better minds than my own can
come up with a good proposal...

Reagle's Second Proposal

    1. If you use the term "Value" or "Algorithm" in the element name,
       then the content of that element must be a literal value or
       algorithm designation. (Consequently) If you need to nest other 
       content in an element, it must not contain the term Value or
Algorithm 
       in its name.

    2. Otherwise, all URIs should be listed as an attribute value.
       
   <Signature xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/10/signature-core">
     <SignedInfo>
       <CanonicalizationAlgorithm>null</CanonicalizationAlgorithm>
       <SignatureAlgorithm>urn:ietf:dsaWithSHA-1</SignatureAlgorithm>
       <ObjectReference HREF="http://www.iet.org"/>
         <Type>text/html; charset="us-ascii"</Type>
         <DigestValue Algorithm="urn:ietf:sha-1"
            Encoding="urn:ietf:base64">ab3234c34</DigestValue>
       </ObjectReference>
     </SignedInfo>
     <SignatureValue
   Encoding="urn:ietf:base64">ab3234c34</SignatureValue>
     <KeyInfo>
       <keyname>Solo</keyname>
     </keyinfo>
   </Signature>
   
   
Type is still weird since it might be a MIME/Type or URN ....


_________________________________________________________
Joseph Reagle Jr.   
Policy Analyst           mailto:reagle@w3.org
XML-Signature Co-Chair   http://w3.org/People/Reagle/

Received on Tuesday, 19 October 1999 18:39:29 UTC