XML Fragment Interchange vs. XPath/XPointer???

I am probably missing something, but....

What is the difference in scope/intent between "XML Fragment
Interchange" and "XPointer" specifications?  The XML Fragment
Interchange examples, seem quite lengthy as compared to the XPath
expressions necessary to specify the same document subsets.  I am not as
familiar with the XPointer specification, but since it -adds- upon the
capabilities of XPath it should be equally or more capable of this
task.  Given XPath/XPointer, why would one use all the lengthy verbage
in the examples XML Fragment Interchange examples?

For example, the example:

<f:fcs xmlns:f="http://www.w3.org/XML/Fragment/1.0"

extref="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/3.0/docbook.dtd"
         parentref="http://www.acme.com/~me/mydocs/mybook.xml"
         xmlns="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/DocbookSchema">
    <book>
      <part>
        <chapter>
          <sect1/>
          <sect1>
            <orderedlist numeration="arabic">
              <listitem/>
              <f:fragbody/>
            </orderedlist>
          </sect1>
        </chapter>
      </part>
    </book>
  </f:fcs>

would seem to be simplifiable to something like (note the select
attribute):

<f:fcs xmlns:f="http://www.w3.org/XML/Fragment/1.0"

extref="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/3.0/docbook.dtd"
         parentref="http://www.acme.com/~me/mydocs/mybook.xml"
         xmlns="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/DocbookSchema"

select='book/part/chapter/sect1[2]/orderedlist[numeration="arabic"]/listitem[position()=2
or position=3]' />

Surely I'm missing the point, right?

Received on Tuesday, 28 September 1999 16:17:49 UTC