- From: W. Eliot Kimber <eliot@isogen.com>
- Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 09:59:01 -0900
- To: <w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org>
At 01:54 PM 6/13/97 +1000, Rick Jelliffe wrote: >They asked about how what gets returned by a ID(x1)..ID(x2) when these ids of element in >different branches of the element tree: does just the text get returned or does a clipped tree >get returned or what. If text is returned, is it XML.. I didn't know. Any ideas yet? >One thing to do (I guess Elliot "Dr Fragment" Kimber is more on top of the issues) would be: > ><?xml rmd="all" ?> ><!doctype document system [...]> ><document id="d1"> ><foo>blah blah blah<bar id="x1"/> blah</foo> ><foo>blah blah blah<bar id="x2"/> blah</foo> ><document> > >traversing a link with pointer ID(x1)..ID(x2) to would get a document like this: Nothing is "returned"; you don't "get to a document". Pointers address data structures in memory, not literal documents. Thus, the wellformedness of what's addressed isn't an issue. Remember that editors and browsers operate on an abstract representation of the parsed document, not the document itself. Communication among tightly-integrated processors must be in terms of these abstractions, not literal syntax. This is why DSSSL and HyTime had to have groves: they needed a common way to talk about the result of parsing, which is what groves are. It's the same reason the DOM group exists. SGML is complicated enough that there are many possible equally valid and equally useful abstract representations of parsed results. Therefore, you either need to agree on one or define a meta-mechanism by which such abstractions can be defined (which is what property sets and grove plans are for DSSSL and HyTime). In all of these discussions, it's critical to keep separate the source, which is what XML lang (like SGML) defines the rules for, and the parsed result of processing that source, which is what XML Link (like HyTime) operates on. Once the documents have been put into memory, issues like well-formedness and even validity go away, because those are syntax issues, and syntax is transcended once the document is parsed (and only resurface when you want to create a new source document). Cheers, Eliot -- <Address HyTime=bibloc> W. Eliot Kimber, Senior Consulting SGML Engineer Highland Consulting, a division of ISOGEN International Corp. 2200 N. Lamar St., Suite 230, Dallas, TX 95202. 214.953.0004 www.isogen.com </Address>
Received on Friday, 13 June 1997 12:02:56 UTC