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Re: [xml-dev] IDs considered harmful or why keys might be better than IDs...
Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote:
> On Monday 12 November 2001 07:53 am, Jonathan Borden wrote:
> > An ID is the name of a subresource (fragment) that _the document
asserts_.
> > Applications are free to use these document defined names, or choose
> > others.
>
> Actually, I would debate that the document asserts it. The document is
data,
> the DTD asserts an interpretation thereof.
Well the DTD is data also, and I was assuming the context of my earlier post
when I suggested that IDs can be provided in XML documents via internal
subsets. The point is that XML IDs are identifiers which are defined in XML
1.0 and do not depend at all on application specific semantics.
>
> > Fragment identifiers of URIs are intended to be parsed according to
media
> > type (perhaps application/xml) and as such the idea that there is an
"XML
> > name" for a fragment of a document is a completely valid one, of course
> > realizing that other applications may choose to name things in different
> > ways.
>
> The syntax doesn't have to be a naked name. The syntax of the fragment id
can
> be whatever one wishes...
Actually one cannot simply use whatever syntax one pleases for a fragment
id. To be conformant to RFC 2396, i.e. to be a "URI" as defined in 2396, the
fragment id must be constructed according to RFC 2396 and the appropriate
media type. _Assuming_ XPointer is accepted as the relevent syntax for
application/xml, text/xml, then a Raw Name is one of the 3 syntaxes
specified in XPointer, the others being ChildSeq and Full XPointer.
Jonathan