Forms WG Review of "CURIE Syntax 1.0" Working Draft 6 May 2008

The Forms WG has reviewed the CURIE draft
http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-curie-20080506/ and discussed it at our F2F
meeting.

We have the following comments.

* default prefix vs. host language defaults

The document says

  host-language defined set of reserved values. Such reserved values
  MUST translate into an IRI, just as with any other CURIE. A host
  language MAY declare a default prefix value, or MAY provide a
  mechanism for defining a default prefix value. In such a host
  language, when the prefix is omitted from a CURIE, the default
  prefix value MUST be used. Conversely, if such a language does not
  define a default prefix value mechanism and does not define a set of
  reserved values, CURIEs MUST NOT be used without a leading prefix
  and colon.

In XForms, one candidate for use of CURIE is the appearance attribute,
which is presently defined as a union of three enumeration values
(minimal, compact, full) with the the set of qualified-names
containing colons (qname-but-not-ncname).

Given the above quote and with reference to the XHTML uses, it seems
that the course would be to define our enumeration values would be to
define a default prefix as "http://www.w3.org/2002/xforms/vocab#" and
define minimal, compact, and full as "reserved values".  We were
initially confused and thought that either of these steps would be
sufficient.

Presumably, as an XML application, XForms has a way to define a
default prefix.  So we suggest normative text be added: "An XML
Application SHOULD use namespace prefixes to define CURIE prefixes."

However, not all XML Applcications are namespace-aware so it should
not be required to use namespace prefixes to define CURIE prefixes.

Also we recommend adding normative text to the effect that "XML
Applications MAY define, in prose, a default prefix, which is
different from their default namespace."

It wasn't clear to us that reserved values may be used without
prefixes; other unprefixed values are not allowed.

So perhaps an example XML application that applies the above rules
would be helpful.

* safe_curies

It was not clear that an application would be allowed to specify CURIE
only and not required to include SafeCURIE.  This is an important port
for existing applications, because it is not a smooth transition for
XForms from qname-but-not-ncname; that is,
  appearance="[minimal]"
is not the same as the currently-specified
  appearance="minimal"

Other existing applications may have this same problem.

Therefore, we recommend an informative note that makes clear that
applications can choose to use CURIEs or SafeCURIEs.

Leigh L. Klotz, Jr.
Xerox Corporation
W3C Forms Working Group

Received on Wednesday, 11 June 2008 14:58:59 UTC