Comments on Canonical XML

http://www.w3.org/Signature/2000/02/CanonicalXML-comments.html

Canonical XML-comments

   Author(s):
          Ed Simon, Entrust <ed.simon@entrust.com>

   The [3]XML Signature WG has reviewed the [4]19 January 2000 draft of
   Canonical XML. Though we have
   some non-mandatory concerns about normalizing character encodings, we
   feel the draft meets our requirements for doing "XML aware
   canonicalization." (We will also specify a minimal [5]canonicalization
   that treats the content as text only.)

    For the record, this note includes a summary of our discussions
    regarding two topics related to Canonical XML. The first topic
    is the character encoding one just mentioned; the second deals
    with the treatment of serializing XPath returns.

        Normalization of character encoding ([6]section 5.1 of
        Canonical XML issued 19 Jan 2000):
          The XML Signature WG sees no signature or security implications
          with respect to the normalization of character representation.
          However, as a community of XML application developers we are
          concerned that requiring implementors to do such normalization
          may be introducing more complexity than is reasonable for the
          stated benefit. No Working Group member has advocated the
          character normalization as specified and a few members have
          expressed concern about its requirements on limited processors.

       Canonicalization of XML Fragments:
          The XML Signature WG discussed whether our requirement to
          serialize and canonicalize the results of XPath expressions
          (particularly node-set results) should be met by Canonical XML.
          We determined that if even if the serialization and
          canonicalization of XPath results is an issue for the XML
          Signature WG, it needs to be resolved by the XML Signature WG
          and is not an issue for the Canonical XML WG.

   In summary, we thank the Canonical XML WG for their efforts and look
   forward to further implementation experience and reports -- both from
   our own community and others.
    


_________________________________________________________
Joseph Reagle Jr.   
Policy Analyst           mailto:reagle@w3.org
XML-Signature Co-Chair   http://www.w3.org/People/Reagle/

Received on Friday, 18 February 2000 19:00:26 UTC