Re: xml:lang [was Re: Outstanding Issues ]

On 2002-02-11 19:45, "ext Brian McBride" <bwm@hplb.hpl.hp.com> wrote:

> 
>>>>> Patrick Stickler said:
> 
> [...]
> 
>>> That said, the M&S view that the language is "part of" the
>>> literal is not quite right, and probably should be adjusted
>>> (or removed), in that, as with datatyping, language is a
>>> property of the occurrence (context) of the literal
>>> and not the literal itself.
> 
> M&S defines language to be part of the literal.  Its simple: a literal is a
> pair ("string", "lang").
> 
> My question was: does anyone have a compelling reason to change this.  Do
> you have one Patrick?

Yes. I thought I explained it. Twice.

Language is not a property of the literal. Language is a specific
context of interpretation. It is similar to datatyping. You don't say that
the literal "5" *is* an xsd:integer, forever and always, wherever it occurs.
Rather, in a given case, the literal may occur with a datatype
context that gives it interpretation.

A literal is not a pair ("string", "lang"). The M&S is wrong.

There, I've said it ;-)

>>  And especially since literals are
>>> now tidy,
> 
> The pair above is just as tidy as "string".

???

So now, 

   <key xml:lang="en">pan</key>
   <key xml:lang="sp">pan</key>

do we get

   xxx key "pan" .  ("en")
   xxx key "pan" .  ("sp")

or 

   xxx key ("pan","en") .
   xxx key ("pan","sp") .

???

Now which represents tidy literals? And does
that mean that for *every* query that compares
literals one must specify language?

And what about comparison of literals where one
is specified for language and the other is not,
do they match? No? Why?

Nope. I don't think that any of our discussions
over the past few months have considered literals
to be anything but the string.

Patrick

--
               
Patrick Stickler              Phone: +358 50 483 9453
Senior Research Scientist     Fax:   +358 7180 35409
Nokia Research Center         Email: patrick.stickler@nokia.com

Received on Monday, 11 February 2002 13:26:05 UTC