Re: data: URI and resource

Graham Klyne <GK@ninebynine.org> wrote:

>> Data URIs don't refer to resources -- they simply are the resources that one
>> would normally expect a URI to refer to. Therefore, I don't think data: URIs
>> need to be explicitly excluded since they do happen to be resources, just
>> different than what we'd normally expect.
> 
> I think it's flawed to say a data:  URI *is* the resource.  RFC2396
> describes a resource as a conceptual mapping from a URI to one or more
> entities.  A data: URI describes and embodies that mapping, and as such it
> is a self contained description of the resource, but that is not the same
> as _being_ the resource.

And RFC 2397 states that:

"[The data: scheme] allows inclusion of small data items as "immediate"
data, as if it had been included externally."

Perhaps my wording wasn't perfect, but I think it communicates the idea. It
may not be the abstract platonian ideal of the resource, but it is the
complete description of what that resource "is". (A tricky distinction in
English, because that is different than how that resource is "used".)

-- 
[ Aaron Swartz | me@aaronsw.com | http://www.aaronsw.com ]

Received on Thursday, 15 February 2001 08:40:36 UTC