CURIEs: A proposal

Hi folks,

A modest proposal, drawing on ideas from Mark, Henry, Tim, Dan, Norm 
and others:

1   We agree on a generic syntax and generic rules for Compact URIs 
    (CURIEs) in attribute values.

2   We agree that restricted syntaxes and rules will be (or have 
    been) defined for specific purposes.   One such purpose is XML 
    Namespaces and QNames.

3   Groups within the W3C and elsewhere will define other restricted 
    syntaxes and rules for their own purposes.

4   The generic syntax for a CURIE in an attribute value will be:
       <foo bar="prefix:suffix"/>

5   The generic syntax for multiple CURIEs in an attribute value 
    will (where permitted) be:
       <foo bar="prefix1:suffix1 ... prefixN:suffixN"/>

6   Both the prefix and the suffix may (in the generic case) be 
    numeric.

7   Each language must specify:

7a  the syntactic constraints (if any) on the prefix and suffix.

7b  how CURIEs and URIs are distinguished, eg through dedicated 
    attributes or through a special syntax.

7c  the mechanism for specifying the prefix-to-IRI mapping.  The 
    mechanism may use information provided out-of-band.

7d  whether and, if so, how the prefix and suffix are combined to 
    form an IRI.

7e  whether the prefix and suffix form a tuple or whether they are 
    just a compact representation for an IRI.

7f  whether the IRI mapped to the prefix is required to be 
    dereferenceable.

7g  whether the IRI built from the prefix and suffix (and, possibly, 
    including also other building blocks) is required to be 
    dereferenceable.

7h  whether any fragment identifiers in these IRIs are required to 
    be legal XML names.

8   To avoid confusion with XML Namespaces and QNames:

8a  The xmlns attribute is reserved for use with XML Namespaces and 
    QNames.

8b  If a prefix matches an xmlns declaration then the CURIE MUST be 
    interpreted as a QName.

Misha
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Received on Friday, 2 June 2006 18:14:37 UTC