Re: Swamped (Was:Re: Call the question!)

keshlam@us.ibm.com wrote:

> There were three main proposals on the table. Here's as honest an analysis
> as I can come up with; if folks want to contribute or refine points, feel
> free -- but you should probably keep them _brief_ and focused on specifics.

> --------------------------------------------------------------
> OPTION 1: FORBID RELATIVE REFERENCES. Namespace Names are URI References
> which must be expressed in absolutized syntax as defined by the RFC.
> Essentially, that means that no leading /. or /.. are premitted; the name
> _must_ start with a URI Scheme (eg "http://")
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> OPTION 2: ABSOLUTIZE RELATIVE REFERENCES. Namespace Names are URI
> References "writ large". If an author writes a relative URI, applications
> see it only in its absolutized form, after being combined with the base URI
> in effect at that point in the document. Note that a single document may
> have multiple base URIs, due to the use of external entities; the XBASE
> proposal raises the same possibility.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> OPTION 3: TREAT NAMESPACE NAMES AS LITERALS. Namespace Names are just Text
> Strings whose value should be expressed in URI Reference form. This is the
> behavior intended by the Namespace Working Group.
>
> ^: Some of the other specs (eg XPath?) which reference Namespaces would
> need to be rewritten to reflect this understanding. Others already have
> this behavior.

Option 3 may require more than a simple rewriting of XPath.   It isn't clear
that the definition of a namespace node in XPath 5.4 will be sensible with
this change, and the discussion to date hasn't really addressed that question.

I'd also suggest Option 4:

OPTION 4: TREAT NAMESPACE NAMES AS LITERALS FOR TESTING ATTRIBUTE UNIQUENESS,
BUT ABSOLUTIZE THEM FOR ALL OTHER  PURPOSES.

That option is in fact consistent with both the namespace spec and XPath as
they stand.

Is the idea of replacing URI references as namespace names by some other form
of unique identifier off the table?

Paul Abrahams

Received on Monday, 22 May 2000 23:06:34 UTC