Re: [xml-dev] Is a URI a uri or the entity pointed to by the uri?

[Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>]

On 27 Nov 2017, at 15:37, Costello, Roger L. <costello@mitre.org> wrote:

Hi Folks,

1. Here is a set:

{The Amazon River, George Washington, 3}

That set uses a name for each of its member, but the set consists of the objects named, not of the names themselves.

If you say so. It's your notation, you can define what it means.

3. An XML document has this attendee element:

                <attendee>http://www.example.com/SallySmith</attendee>

The XML Schema declares attendee this way:

                <element name=”attendee” type=”xs:anyURI” />

What is the value of <attendee>?

I guess you're actually asking, what is the value of <attendee>http://www.example.com/SallySmith</attendee>

Answer: it depends what you mean by "value of". If your question means, for example, What is the [value] property of the element information item in the Infoset produced by parsing the string "<attendee>http://www.example.com/SallySmith</attendee>", then the answer is: there is no value property; the Infoset defines no such property. If your question means something else, for example What is the string-value of the element node in XDM produced by parsing the string "<attendee>http://www.example.com/SallySmith</attendee>", then the answer is "http://www.example.com/SallySmith" (a string, or more precisely, an untypedAtomic value). And if your question means "what is the typed value" of this element node, then the answer is a URI (or more precisely, an instance of xs:anyURI).

If your question refers to some specification of an XML vocabulary that uses the term "value of" in a different way, then the answer could indeed be a person whose name is Sally Smith. You just need to say what you mean. Until you say what you mean, your question is meaningless.

Michael Kay

Saxonica