RE: [xml-dev] IDs without DTD/Schema , Is there a way ?

[Michael Brennan <Michael_Brennan@Allegis.com>]

Another problem with IDs is that they have document-level scope. Using a
specific global attribute poses problems when XML is used in a modular
fashion, such as with enveloping schemes such as SOAP.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tim Bray [mailto:tbray@textuality.com]
> Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 11:16 AM
> To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: Re: [xml-dev] IDs without DTD/Schema , Is there a way ?
> 
> 
> At 01:34 AM 25/10/01 -0700, Ronald Bourret wrote:
> >There are only two ways to determine if an attribute is an 
> ID attribute:
> >
> >1) From a DTD or XML Schema
> >2) The attribute name is hard-coded in your application
> >
> >You cannot just look at an attribute and decide if it is an ID
> >attribute. 
> 
> Yes, and this is one of our really big outstanding serious
> architectural problems.  It's really important for the 
> workings of the web that an address such as 
> 
> http://example.com/foo#Chapter12
> 
> have well-defined semantics.  If foo turns out to be XML, 
> this is hopelessly underdefined.  At various times James Clark
> and I have both suggested that we just brutally hijack the 
> attribute name "id" and assert that it is of DTD type ID.
> 
> Other ideas have included using xml:id or having a reserved
> namespace http://w3.org/xmlid or some such; any attribute 
> associated with it is of type ID.
> 
> This one isn't going to go away.  -Tim