Re: About "dereferencing"

• From: Martin J. Duerst <duerst@w3.org>
• Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 23:37:31 +0900
• To: Michele Diodati <md4223@mclink.it>, w3c-translators@w3.org
• Message-Id: <199803121513.AAA01054@sh.w3.mag.keio.ac.jp>

At 11:07 98/03/12 +0100, Michele Diodati wrote:
> Dear translators,
> 
> in our translation of HTML 4.0 into Italian we are experimenting some
> difficulties about the following paragraph:
> 
> |line 418 - file: "links.html"

Please don't use line numbers for referring to HTML documents :-).


> |type = content-type [CI]
> |     When present, this attribute specifies the content type of a piece of
> |content, for example, the result of dereferencing a
> |     resource. Content types are defined in [MIMETYPES].
> 
> Can you explain in other words this sentence: "the result of dereferencing
> a resource"? What does "dereferencing" mean?

It's an "educated" way to refer to what happens when you take an
URI (a reference) and turn it into the thing it references
(generically called a resource). So strictly speaking, the text
above is a bit incorrect, as it's not the resource, but the
reference to the resource, that is dereferenced.


Regards,   Martin.

Received on Thursday, 12 March 1998 10:14:00 UTC