xml:base="relative-value" underspecified

I was trying to work out from
http://www.w3.org/XML/Group/2006/09/xmlbase-2e/
exactly what it would mean for a document to have
a relative URI reference as the value of xml:base.

We have that the value of xml:base is to be interpreted as
a LEIRI, but the definition of that (once I correct for
the broken link by looking at draft 3) seems not to allow
for such a think as a LEIRI Reference, which is the only
thing that the IRI spec allows to be relative.

So I am thinking that the example in section 3 of the
xmlbase spec is not supported by the normative prose,
although I don't want to say it's wrong, because
(1) it's obviously useful, and
(2) I claim no normal human can understand the maze of IRI specs.

But would it be worth some explicit prose about relative IRIs
in xml:base somewhere?  Maybe with the example, and given that
(I fear) almost no-one will do anything other than read the
example and the (very important and useful) quoting rules,
it's not worth a change to the document at this stage.  Or
maybe I'm missing something obvious?

Thanks,

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin, W3C XML Activity Lead, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/ * http://www.fromoldbooks.org/

Received on Wednesday, 23 July 2008 02:40:11 UTC