Re: A proposed solution

On Fri, 9 Jun 2000, Simon St.Laurent wrote:

> 1) What's the base URI of a defaulted attribute?

Defaulted or specified, the base URI is that of the element, i.e.
derived from the external general entity in which the element
appears.

> 2) What to do when there's no base URI?

*shrug*  You wanna use relative URIs, make sure there is a base URI.
If there isn't, use an application specific default.  RFC 2396 lays
down the rules: document-specific base (xml:base, or the BASE element
in HTML) if you have one; if not, the base of the (document or external)
entity if you have one; if not, an application-specific fallback.

Here is the relevant bit of 2396:

# 5.1.4. Default Base URI
#
#   If none of the conditions described in Sections 5.1.1--5.1.3 apply,
#   then the base URI is defined by the context of the application.
#   Since this definition is necessarily application-dependent, failing
#   to define the base URI using one of the other methods may result in
#   the same content being interpreted differently by different types of
#   application.
#
#   It is the responsibility of the distributor(s) of a document
#   containing relative URI to ensure that the base URI for that document
#   can be established.  It must be emphasized that relative URI cannot
#   be used reliably in situations where the document's base URI is not
#   well-defined.

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
	"You need a change: try Canada"  "You need a change: try China"
		--fortune cookies opened by a couple that I know

Received on Friday, 9 June 2000 18:55:10 UTC