Re: Catalog Requirements

[Terry Allen <tallen@sonic.net>]

Paul wrote:
| At 08:51 2000 11 16 -0800, Norman Walsh wrote:
| >/ Terry Allen <tallen@sonic.net> was heard to say:
| >| What bad happens if we just add a URI>URI function?  (I don't
| >| know, I'm asking to see whether the simplest solution would 
| >| work.)
| >
| >I don't know that anything bad happens, but I have three concerns.
| 
| I share Norm's concerns.
| 
| Furthermore, I would elaborate on what I'd call the function vrs syntax
| issue.  That is, all of PUBLIC, SYSTEM, and other catalog entry types
| are functional.  That is, in each case, the lefthand side is a string
| in context.  For example, "xxx" could be a public id, a system id, an
| entity name, etc., but what "xxx" represents is clear from looking at
| the catalog entry in which it appears.  
| 
| Once you start to have a URI entry type, you are allowing something
| whose function is unclear to be mapped.  When you call an entity
| resolver, you come in with an external entity declaration and you
| know that you've got X for the entity name, Y for the public id,
| and Z for the system id, and TR9401 carefully defines how to do
| the catalog lookup.  

Just to clarify, what Paul is calling "function" is "function in
XML"; URNs have the function of naming and URLs have the function
of locating.

| But URI is orthogonal to PUBLIC, SYSTEM, etc., and it going to be 
| a mess.  I don't want to go there.  

Okay.  We do need URI>URI mapping, though.  Let's imagine it
happens through (some piece of some processor) consulting another 
map.  (If anyone wants references to previous URN-WG work on
such maps, let me know.)

What piece of what processor would we like it to be, and should
the mapping be done before or after the xmlcat is consulted,
or both?  and should the two items (URI map and xmlcat) be
consulted by the XML processor or by some new, specialized
processor that feeds its results into the XML processor?

or something else?

regards, Terry