RE: [xml-dev] Re: determining ID-ness in XML

[Leigh Dodds <ldodds@ingenta.com>]

[Forgive the baby steps in the following]

Hmm, as I see it the best problem statement so far is
Lens:

>Problem: XML processors have no reliable means to declare
>link targets for processing in applications that do not use standard
>means to declare and validate XML primitive ID types.

The keyword here being "reliable", as there *is* a way to
determine a link target without ID types: a full XPointer.
In other words, I could simply define the precise XPath
expression that selects the element I want.

e.g. xpointer(foo/bar[1]/baz[2])

(cue someone jumping in here to point out what I'm missing)

What do we mean by reliable? How about this:

- Reliability of the target (in the face of document edits,
are their other circumstances?)
- Reliability of the link processor (which may not support
full XPointers)

Does the latter seem reasonable? I added the latter because
presumably it's easier to support bare XPointers.

To state the problem slightly differently then: we want to be able to
provide a link to a fragment of a document that does not have a DTD
and may be changing, and be able to use that link in the widest possible
set of processing environments.

[Implicit in 'does not have a DTD' and 'may be changing' is 'outside
of our control' - otherwise we could add a DTD, or be aware of
impacts of edits. 'outside of our control' will mean pretty much
every document on the web]

If I'm close on the above, then I'd say that the next question is
how do we define, or measure reliability? There are obviously some finite
limits: Links fail (404); Deletions (The element I'm linking to has been
removed).

Precisely defined XPointers are also not reliable in the
face of rearrangements to the document structure. The current
proposals can accomodate this, and don't (necessarily) rely
on XPointer processing.

Are there other ways to distinguish the proposals based on
reliability?

(Have I gone off at a tangent?)

L.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bullard, Claude L (Len) [mailto:clbullar@ingr.com]
> Sent: 01 November 2001 17:50
> To: Rob Lugt; Bob Hutchison; xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: RE: [xml-dev] Re: determining ID-ness in XML
>
>
> Ah but we are getting there.  That is the brilliance of XML-Dev:
> junkyard doggedness.  We love this stuff. :-)
>
> len
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rob Lugt [mailto:roblugt@elcel.com]
>
>
> p.s.  Even though I'm advocating <?xml-typeinfo?> as the solution, I agree
> with Len that we haven't really defined the problem ;-)
>
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