XHTML Naming Rules

The "Naming Rules" sections in these two closely related documents are
obviously very similar:

  1. [BUILDING] "Building XHTML Modules" (Section 3.2)
     http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/WD-xhtml-building-20000105/
  2. [XHTMLMOD] "Modularization of XHTML" (Section 3.4)
     http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-modularization/

The substantive difference (specification of the public text class as
'ELEMENTS' in one and 'DTD' in the other) not being at issue, the
following commentary and suggestions apply equally to both documents.

> Names for XHTML-conforming document types must adhere to strict naming
> conventions so that it is possible for software and users to readily
> determine the relationship of document types to XHTML. 

This does not say anything that isn't covered in the accompanying
"Rationale" section.  Not only should this sentence be removed (and
perhaps the text in the Rationale section expanded slightly), but it is
certainly out of place in the [BUILDING] document, where the items of
concern are specifically not "document types" but modules.

[BUILDING]
> The names for modules are defined through XML Formal Public
> Identifiers (FPIs).
[XHTMLMOD]
> The names for document types implemented as XML Document Type
> Definitions are defined through XML Formal Public Identifiers (FPIs).

Since the XML 1.0 spec does not define "XML Formal Public Identifiers",
the "XML" preface should be removed.

> Within FPIs, fields are separated by double slash character sequences
> (//).

This is apparently a simplification of a somewhat more complex syntax:
treating '//' as a field separator can result in a variable number of
fields where the semantics are not fixed cardinally.  

> 1. The leading field identifies the resources relationship to a formal
>    standard. For privately defined resources, this field MUST be "-".
>    For formal standards, this field MUST be the formal reference to the
>    standard (e.g. ISO/IEC 15445:1999).

The first sentence is not correct with respect to the simplification, the
essential point of which here is the content of the second sentence.  The
third sentence, regarding formal standards, should be removed.  It is not
relevant, and is potentially confusing in relation to the subsequent items
(for instance, in such FPIs, the public text class would be in the second
'field', not the third.)  Suggested alternative text:

: 1. The leading field MUST be "-", to indicate a privately defined
:    resource.

It may help to offer references to more complete explanations of FPIs,
such as

  http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/tauber-fpi.html
  http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/petersonFPI-TAG7030101.html

It may also help to point out that the text inside public identifiers is
case-sensitive, does not permit entity references, and is subject to
whitespace normalization, although this information is available from the
XML 1.0 spec.


Arjun Ray

Received on Monday, 17 January 2000 02:41:41 UTC