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> Ugh. I've been avoiding responses. My suggested change was to change
> the statements that "a namespace name is a URI reference," wherever they
> appear, to "a namespace name is not a URI reference." It's just a
> string.
Hmm. I prefer John's wording. I think your would just increase the confusion.
> This is not because I think it's a good solution, but because I think it
> reflects current reality. As it stands, you can't do *anything* useful
> with a namespace name; it's just a string.
I think no one thinks it's a good solution, and we all agree it's a way to
accommodate the reality with a minimum of weasel words.
> The solution that I *vastly* would prefer is to make namespace names URI
> references. If they are URI references, then they follow the rules for
> URI references, in terms of comparison for equality, and normalization.
> This would mean that you'd have to actually look at the URI to see if
> it's a known scheme, and if so, use the comparison rules of that scheme
> (a lot of URL-style schemes are quite similar, if that makes a
> difference, and are also the most widely used). This would mean that
> http://www.talsever.com/ and http://www.Talsever.com/ compare equal.
I think part of the problem for this is that it would greatly complicate
NS-aware software. After all, the fact that an authority based on DNS is just
one rule from one species of URI. As an example of another that would have to
be implemented, in a UUID URN, dashes are optional, so that
urn:uuid:3c3b8cd7-3c9a-4cc7-b6af-f180dd757568
urn:uuid:3c3b8cd73c9a4cc7b6aff180dd757568
And yes, I've used UUID URNs in practice, so this is not just an academic
objection. I believe OIDs and FPIs have their own comparison schemes.
As you can see, this gets out of hand quickly.
> So far as I know, no URI specification bases comparison for equality of
> reference (of the URI, that is) on comparison for equality of the
> referenced/retrieved resource. Actually looking something up is
> irrelevant.
>
> The drawback to making namespace names actually *be* URI references,
> rather than strings that bear a strong resemblance to URI references but
> no shared behavior at all, is that inconsistent results may occur,
> depending upon whether the parser recognizes the scheme. An
> unrecognized scheme can only be compared, as now, character-by-character
> for equality with no normalization, no case-insensitivity. So a parser
> that does recognize the scheme may give different results than a parser
> that does not.
Exactly. I don't think this is tenable.
> > If XMLNS were to change to make the strings syntactically URI refs, would it
> > not require a change of the edict forbidding relative namespaces? Not that I
> > know anything abou that edict except through rumor.
>
> "relative string" is fairly meaningless, as things now stand.
"relative string" is pretty meaningless. Period. Where did you see it come
up?
> With a change, "relative URI" might have meaning.
Of course that's what I was saying. As Mike Brown put it: "the strings are
syntactically either an empty string or an absolute URI reference". UNless we
also change the errata that deprecates relative URIs, in which case we really
have nothing more than a string with a special set of escaping rules disjoint
from XML's. Which sounds to me like the boiled down residue of a very bad job
overall.
Tant pis.
--
Uche Ogbuji Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net http://4Suite.org http://fourthought.com
Track chair, XML/Web Services One Boston: http://www.xmlconference.com/
Basic XML and RDF techniques for knowledge management, Part 7 -
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-think12.html
Keeping pace with James Clark - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/libra
ry/x-jclark.html
Python and XML development using 4Suite, Part 3: 4RDF -
http://www-105.ibm.com/developerworks/education.nsf/xml-onlinecourse-bytitle/8A
1EA5A2CF4621C386256BBB006F4CEC
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