RE: XML observation

On Fri, 2003-07-04 at 08:41, Patrick.Stickler@nokia.com wrote:

[...]

> These tensions come to a head in cases such as RDF/XML when you 
> use XML as a markup formalism for a data structure which encapsulates 
> data that itself uses XML as a markup formalism for document modelling, 
> since, as Pat points out, XML itself fails to provide any 
> distinction between the encapsulation and the encapsulated.

Aye, here seems to be the (a?) nub; the distinction between a fragment
of XML being part of a document and being embedded (is 'quoted' a better
term) in it.  It is well known that XML has trouble embedding XML inside
itself - entities being another case in point.

We need to be sure everyone understands what is being said here.  Feel
free to improve on the following.

Consider:

[[
This sentence, which refers to the French sentence "La plume de am tante
est rouge." is in English.
]]

This sentence is true, even though it contains a French sentence,
because the French sentence is referred to in the sentence, but is not
part of it.

I don't think XML has such a mechanism for quoting bits of XML such as
in the above sentence, so that contextual attributes such as xml base
and xml lang don't apply inside them.  Patrick is arguing, I think, that
parseType="Literal" is such a mechanism introduced into RDF/XML.

[...]

> 
> An RDF literal is precisely that, a *literal*. It should not
> be infected with the contextual characteristics of the language
> used to describe the data structures which encapsulate it.

Martin has argued that it should and spelled out his reasons which I
summarized in:

  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-rdfcore-wg/2003Jul/0072.html

It would be helpful if you could spell out the arguments for why a
parseType="Literal" fragment should not inherit xml:lang from its
context?

Brian

Received on Friday, 4 July 2003 07:07:55 UTC