Re: [security-services] XPath Attribute Profile: XPath as anIdentifier

[Robert Aarts <robert@trustgenix.com>]

Hi,

One thing came to mind... In the DST-based spec the XPath expressions (Select statements) that the service supports almost always point to an *element*. I guess for the use cases proposed here you would want the "value" of the (leaf) element; i.e. in XSLT terms something like <xsl:value-of select="[xPath expression]" />. I'm not quite sure if Eve already addressed this point in one of the earlier emails in this thread. In any case it would be relatively easy to add text to the profile spec to this end.
Apologies if this was already mentioned and I missed it.

Robert
>     I follow you know - thanks.  In the NameFormat we can't reference the DST because it doesn't define any restriction of XPath.  We really shouldn't reference the service (in the nameFormat) because it doesn't restrict the XPath - it just defines the minimum.   
>      
>     So lets propose two possible name formats: 
>     NameFormat="http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xpath-19991116"  For generic xpath 1.0 
>     NameFormat="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:xpath-id" for restricted xpath as an uniqueID 
>      
>     - Cameron
>     
>     >>>"Eve L. Maler" <Eve.Maler@Sun.COM> 04/07/05 1:28 pm >>>
>     Hi Cameron-- You might be going farther than I intended to go.  What
>     I mean by a URI "representing" these meanings is just that the
>     NameFormat is supposed to explain how to interpret the Name, and it
>     doesn't, in standalone fashion, have to actually convey the set of
>     valid/possible names -- it just has to convey that such a set
>     exists.  In other words, it's just a category.
>     
>     So if you see a NameFormat of "urn:fooW3Cwhatever:XPath1.0", you
>     know that the name might be an arbitrary XPath V1.0 path into some
>     document, potentially with no connection to valid DST usage.  If you
>     see a NameFormat of "urn:fooLibertywhatever:aDSTflavorofXPath" you
>     know that the Name will be an XPath derived from a set governed by
>     the relevant DST resource's metadata.
>     
>     Eve
>