XIncludes with relative paths (libxml + WinXP).

[Georges Schmitz <georges.schmitz@heitec.de>]

Using libxml 20619 und WinXP, I have a problem when it comes to
resolve XIncludes with relative paths. The absolute path, that libxml
is building internally seems not to fit libxml's own needs (uri
convention), because the file prefix is only written with 1 "/"
instead of 3.

My main file is stored in "D:\BAZL\doc\de\ml", the chapter
"ch-metadata.xml" is also stored at this place, so the following
xinclude instruction should work:

 >>>>>>>>>>>>>
    <book><title>Title</title>

    ...
      <xi:include xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2003/XInclude";
                  href="ch-metadata.xml"
                  parse="xml">
        <xi:fallback>
          <para><emphasis role="bold">FIXME:  missing xinclude content
          (metadata)</emphasis></para>
        </xi:fallback>
      </xi:include>

    ...
<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Validating the document with xmllint shows the error message:

    I/O error : failed to load external entity 
"file%3A/D%3A/BAZL/doc/de/ml/ch-metadata.xml"


If I specify an absolute path (not a real solution at all) in the
following way:

    href="D:/BAZL/doc/de/ml/ch-metadata.xml"

I would expect libxml to complain too, but it works. libxml resolves
it into

    D:///BAZL/doc/de/ml/ch-metadata.xml

which looks strange enough in my eyes ("D:" as protocol?).


Only the following looks right:
    href="file:///D:/BAZL/doc/de/ml/ch-metadata.xml"
is resolved into:
    file:///D%3A/BAZL/doc/de/ml/ch-metadata.xml

Is this behavior a bug in libxml and do I have other possibilities
than using an absolute path? I played around with xml:base and
catalog entries (forcing 3 "/" with a <rewriteUri>), but then I got
problems with image paths. As I'm using XPointers too, it seems I'm
stuck to libxml, since Xalan is not able to resolve XPointers yet.

Any hints are welcome,
Georges