Re: Clarification

On Wednesday 14 August 2002 05:44 pm, Dournaee, Blake wrote:
> The paragraph logic as written doesn't necessarily imply Christian's
> conclusion. Assuming #1 and #2, #3 is not necessarily true if one were to
> read the XML Signature Recommendation alone.

You also need to understand XPointer selection (which includes comments) in 
the context of xmldsig, and I agree it's an easy issue to get confused on, 
that's why we have have (at least) points #1 and #2.

> My point is largely academic. I think the consensus is correct: XPointer
> fragment references include all referenced child nodes with no further
> qualification. It just doesn't explicitly SAY these words. Not a big
> deal. Carry on :)

Correct.

> 1. "if the URI is not a full XPointer, then delete all
>     comment nodes"

Right, step 5 of 4.3.3.3 .


> 2.  "Therefore to retain the default behavior of stripping
>     comments when passed a node-set, they are removed in
>     the last step if the URI is not a full XPointer."

Right, explaination of step 5 in 4.3.3.3 .

> 3. *If* it's an XPointer, comments are not removed.

"The last step is performed for null URIs, barename XPointers and child 
sequence XPointers. It's necessary because when [XML-C14N] is passed a 
node-set, it processes the node-set as is: with or without comments"

This doesn't say that an XPointer *doesn't* remove comments by default but 
you won't find anything in that spec that says it would. I'm not sure a 
clarification is necessary, but if someone wants to explicitly propose one 
we can consider it -- though it sounds if Blake is satisfied.

Received on Monday, 19 August 2002 12:12:53 UTC