Denotation of XMLLiterals: poll

It seems that there is some concern about XMLLiterals denoting octet 
sequences.  As I understand things, RDFCore doesn't feel strongly that 
the denotation MUST be octet sequences.  Pat has layed what we really 
care about in:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-rdfcore-wg/2003Jul/0452.html

I suggest we accept Pat's suggestion and reconsider the denotation of 
XMLLiterals.  I have seen three suggestions, as I recall:

  A) be a bit vague about XMLLiterals really are - just define their 
essential properties

  B) have them denote XPATH nodesets

  C) have them denote a pair (uri, lex form), where uri is the uri of 
rdf:XMLLiteral.

Concern has been expressed about A being to vague.  Others have 
responded saying thats normal - integers are defined in terms of their 
properties.

Concern has been expressed that XPATH nodesets are too vague, we don't 
really know that they are and are thus no better than A, but are in some 
way worse.  Cannonicalization does define an equality relation on them

I have heard a private concern expressed about C, that if we did that, 
shouldn't we treat all datatypes that way.  Further, that this does 
guarantee that there are no other ways of denoting the same pair with 
another, posibly user defined datatype.

How do we choose?  If you have a preference and rationale, it would be 
good hear it.

Brian

Received on Wednesday, 6 August 2003 07:31:56 UTC