real-world XML link exercise

In our authoring system, we mark up companies like:

	<phrase type="company" symbol="gm">General Motors</phrase>

In the HTML we deliver, this becomes something like:

	<a href="/inap-bin/bb?page=15&sym=gm">General Motors</a>

-- which is a hyperlink to a "Briefing Book" on GM.

QUESTION ONE

What would be the XML way to link all company names to their corresponding
Briefing Books? Does that fact that other <phrase> types (such as
type="person") do NOT link to Briefing Books mean we couldn't make <phrase>
an XML-LINK, and instead we should generate:

	<company symbol="gm">General Motors</company>
with:
	<!element company (%enriched-text;)*>
	<!attlist company
			xml-link	cdata		#fixed "xlink"
			symbol		cdata		"URL" (mapping to HRTYPE here)
			locsrc		cdata		"/inap-bin/bb?page=15&sym="
			title		cdata		"Link to Briefing Book"
	>

QUESTION TWO

How could we allow our customers to transform our one-to-one link (to a
Briefing Book) to a one-to-two link (to *our* B.B. OR a query on *their*
databases for mentions of GM)?

Would they somehow load alongside the WSJ a Personal Linking Document that
redefines our element declaration? Or is this the XLG/XLD stuff? 

Alan.


<!-- 
    Alan Karben
    Manager, Multimedia
    The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition

    karben@interactive.wsj.com    phone: 609 520 7361
    http://wsj.com                  fax: 609 520 7137
-->

Received on Monday, 24 March 1997 15:55:59 UTC