xml-dev - RE: External Resources: Catalogs, XInclude, XBase

[Leigh Dodds <ldodds@ingenta.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-xml-dev@xml.org [mailto:owner-xml-dev@xml.org]On Behalf Of
> Paul Grosso
> Sent: 18 April 2000 16:17
> To: xml-dev
> Subject: Re: External Resources: Catalogs, XInclude, XBase
> 

[ comments on entity management catalogs ]
 
> It would be perfectly reasonable for a processor that supports
> catalog use to treat the URI given on an xinclude as it would
> any external identifier and pass it through the catalog processing.

I would that would be useful, it wasn't clear from my reading of 
the spec whether this was to be the expected (or allowed) behaviour.
 
> Perhaps the XInclude spec could make it clearer that the value
> of its href attribute is similar to a system identifier in the 
> sense of that associated with the SystemLiteral of production [73]
> in the XML spec so that catalog processing (if any) would occur on 
> it too.

I think this would be a useful clarification which will highlight 
that xinclude URIs are to be treated in the same manner as other 
external identifiers.

> I'm not sure what similar functionality you mean.  A packaging
> mechanism (i.e., some way to be able to refer to--and perhaps
> facilitate transmission of--a related set of files) would sure
> be nice.  It's on the "future" list of the XML Activity, but at 
> the present, there aren't enough cycles to attack the problem.  

I meant that a packaging mechanism might need to include
'local (entity management) catalog' to ensure that references 
in PackagedDocA to B can be dereferenced to actually point 
to PackagedDocB.

This would allow documents to be packaged without any 
need to transform their contents.

I'd expect that logically a package would contain a manifest 
(whats in the package), and a catalog (linking contents 
together). However these might physically be the same file.

A package processor would expect at least a manifest in a 
package.

Just musing aloud.
 
Cheers,

L.

-- 
Leigh Dodds, Systems Architect       | "Pluralitas non est ponenda
http://weblogs.userland.com/eclectic |    sine necessitates"
http://www.xml.com/pub/xmldeviant    |     -- William of Ockham

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