Re: the return of the Public Identifier Question

Sean McGrath wrote:
> 3.
> Here is a suggested solution that is, as the saying goes, "simple,
> elegant and wrong".
>
> Make all XML entity names URLs. Allow (we cannot stop!) arbitary
> levels of indirection to be implemented at OS level to map a URL to
> something else.
>
> Define a simple URL to URL mapping CATALOG scheme as part of the XML
> spec.

It occurs to me, in fact, that if we simply allow SYSTEM entries
in our CATALOGs, and allow nothing else (except possibly DELEGATE or
CATALOG entries??), we have no need for PUBLIC at all.

You get all the indirection you like.

I could live with that.

There would be no possibility of incompatibility because two systems
would look up PUBLIC and SYSTEM in a different order.

    Note:  Peter and Eve and Terry and I know what happened when Panorama
	   was changed, and how long it took to identify the problem!

The PUBLIC zealots can simply put PUBLIC IDs in their SYSTEM identifiers,
and use CATALOG to map them to URLs.

Note that
    public:-//Percival//DTD XXX//JP
is a perfectly valid URL, although there is no widespread resolution
mechanism for it.  You can put that in any XML system identifier.
Obviously a non-CATALOG XML system wouldn't be able to deal with it,
so this would *require* all XML systems to handle CATALOG.

But it's a very simple CATALOG now.

SYSTEM "url1" "url2"

How about it?

Lee

Received on Friday, 21 March 1997 13:36:32 UTC