Re: URI, SOI (off topic)

[Terry Allen <tallen@sonic.net>]

Paul wrote:
| At 15:01 2000 11 21 -0800, Terry Allen wrote:
| >| | And yes, you could have used different URLs for the DTD and the
| >| | style sheet.  I think that that's the only way in which you'll ever 
| >| | be able to count on that instance being processed the same way
| >| | by various tools.
| >| 
| >| Tools that understand xmlcat will work just fine with
| >| 
| >| <system id="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/" soi="docbook.dtd"/>
| >| <stylesheet id="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/" soi="docbook.css"/>
| >| <schemaloc id="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/" soi="docbook.xsd"/>
| >
| >I was commenting on the instance, not the catalogue.  The instance
| >won't work with existing tools.
| 
| Nor would the very reasonable instance:
| 
|  <!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.0//EN" "docbookx.dtd">
|  <book>...</book>
| 
| without a catalog, so saying "the instance, not the catalog" isn't
| useful.  

First, you're right, though I use SYSTEM these days, and omit the 
"docbookx.dtd" from the doctype decl, leaving it in the catalogue.
But I was saying that the instance wasn't interoperable without
some additional machinery *beyond* a catalogue.

| And Norm's instance will work with current tools (at least
| as far as the PUBLIC and SYSTEM ids--the stylesheet and schemaloc
| are new suggestions, but the point remains).  They will work

It started:
| <?xml version="1.0"?>
| <!DOCTYPE book SYSTEM "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/" [

What I had in mind was that the SYSTEM identifier doesn't identify a 
DTD or schema; it doesn't name a DTD or schema.
You can map it to an SOI on your own system,
but you can't use it to retrieve a DTD or schema by HTTP (which
is what I thought Norm was doing in the example catalogue) without
some additional machinery *beyond* a catalogue.  Am I wrong about
that?

| fine with tools that support the TR9401:1997 OASIS catalog, of
| which there are a fair number including most of James Clark's
| SGML tools and Arbortext's SGML and XML tools.  Given that this
| OASIS TC is, in general terms, tasked with coming up with an XML 
| format for what is basically the TR9401 catalog, why would you want
| to ignore TR9401 tools or requestion the solutions to the problems 
| that TR9401 already addresses?  

I pointed out in the subject line and the body that this thread
was off topic.  As for requestioning the solutions, I don't
see why they shouldn't be reexamined.  But if you'd like me to shut 
up, I shall.  

Do James's tools really fetch DTDs via HTTP given a URL
such as

	http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/

(which currently is an HTML page, so can't be used for testing)?

best regards, Terry