CR-18 Response: Validating XPointer IDREFs?

Dear Eric,

The W3C XML Schema Working Group has spent the last several weeks
working through the comments received from the public on the
Candidate Recommendation (CR) of the XML Schema specification. We
thank you for the comments you made on our specification during
our CR comment period, and want to make sure you know that all
comments received during the CR comment period have been recorded
in our CR issues list (http://www.w3.org/2000/12/xmlschema-crcomments.html).

You raised the point registered as issue CR-18:

Title: Validating XPointer IDREFs?

In particular, you asked whether XML Schema should provide a mechanism to
check if or not the target of a document-internal URI-reference as used in
IDREFs in XPointer really exists.

Resolution:
The Working Group considered this issue at the f2f meeting in London and
decided not to add this feature at this moment.

Adding some simple string-processing functions to the key/keyref mechanism
may solve this particular IDREFs validation case but will not solve more
general  cases.  On the other hand, adding more complex functions will
significantly overshadow the benefits of the key/keyref mechanism over its
complexity.  It seems that such constraint may be more appropriately
implemented on top of the current XML Schema language, thereby not making
the current spec more complex that it needs to be.

It would be helpful to us to know whether you are satisfied with the
decision taken by the WG on this issue, or wish your dissent from the
WG's decision to be recorded for consideration by the Director of
the W3C.

Regards

Aki Yoshida
XML Schema Working Group

Received on Wednesday, 14 February 2001 06:56:39 UTC