- From: Norman Walsh <Norman.Walsh@Sun.COM>
- Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 11:03:13 -0400
- To: www-tag@w3.org
In the course of discussing the QName finding, at the 15 July telcon, I brought up the issue of requiring xmlns() in XPointer. The requirement was greeted with immediate support on the basis of the context-independence of URIs. That is, an XPointer of this form: <x:p> <x:a href="#xpointer(//x:div[3])">the third div</x:a> </x:p> was deemed inappropriate because it relied on in-scope namespace declarations to determine the fully qualified name of x:div. The "correct" XPointer by this reasoning is: <x:p> <x:a href="#xmlns(x=http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml) xpointer(//x:div[3])">the third div</x:a> </x:p> There's no question that the latter is context-independent and the former is not, but I really think the requirement that all XPointers have the latter form is going to hamper adoption of XPointer. We already have context-dependent URIs in pointers: <a href="../chap2/index.html">Chapter Two</a> so I don't see how context-independence by itself is an unassailable argument for requiring xmlns(). Transforming a relative URI reference into an absolute URI reference requires some understanding of the current context (the base URI) and transforming a URI reference that contains undeclared QNames into an absolute URI reference requires some understanding of the current context (the in-scope namespaces). Both transformations are unambiguous and amenable to automation. How are these two cases not equivalent? Be seeing you, norm -- Norman.Walsh@Sun.COM | Decide, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance XML Standards Architect | of one set of influences over another Sun Microsystems, Inc. | set.--Ambrose Bierce
Received on Thursday, 18 July 2002 11:03:24 UTC