RE: [xml-dev] (In)Validate My Assumptions on Linking.

["Len Bullard" <cbullard@hiwaay.net>]

Correct.  In the older systems, the notation was noted in the link.  Hytime
had a set of locator types to enable one to specify how the address could be
resolved.   It begins to look clunky when spec'd but that was the purpose.

I pruned the CC because all parties are subscribed to XML-Dev. 

len


From: Jirka Kosek [mailto:jirka@kosek.cz] 

Not always, and in many situations you can't separete these two, because 
nature and destination of link usually depends on media for which you 
are styling document. If you have link from place A to place B in your 
XML file and you are then presenting this XML as two output formats 
(e.g. PDF and HTML) actual links (destination URI) will be completely 
different and depending on output media used.

For example, link <link xlink:href="intro.xml"/> can be converted to <a 
href="chap01.html">Introduction</a> for HTML output. For PDF output, 
destination URI could be something like manual.pdf#page=3.

One of flaws of XLink + XPointer was assumption that link traversal 
would occur on original XML sources. But because of lack of support for 
direct XML rendering in applications, you must convert XML to HTML or 
PDF if you want to deliver it to users. This means that you must map 
original XLinks to links between HTML or PDF files.