I think we’re probably ok with the
current syntax. With respect to “//”, it looks to me like we’re
more restrictive than generic URIs in two ways.
First, a relative URI reference can start
with “//” (i.e. be relative to the scheme), while an XRI cannot.
URI legal – //authority/path
XRI illegal – //authority/path
Second, the path portion of a URI
reference can have an empty first segment, while an XRI cannot.
URI legal – http://www.epok.net//path
XRI illegal – xri://www.epok.net//path
Allowing these two forms significantly complicates
the ABNF. I suggest we stay where we are.
Dave
From: Wachob, Gabe
[mailto:gwachob@visa.com]
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2005
3:11 PM
To: Drummond Reed; Dave McAlpin;
xri@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [xri] Relative XRIs
Drummond -
You aren't suggesting
that //@foo is a legal XRI, are you? Thats really odd. Why would this ever
appear? It leads to a complicated rule: if // is at the beginning, then its
relative, unless the first char after the // is a GCS char.
I'd rather just have
the same rule as URI: if the URI starts with a scheme, then its either a
relative or absolute, depending on the presence of // after the scheme. if the
URI starts without a scheme, then its relative. (Where scheme is scheme chars
followed by a :)
I think Dave at one point
suggested that the first path segment shouldn't be allowed to be empty, and
thats why // could never be a relative XRI. I don't know why Dave had made this
suggestion and I don't see now why we should have this restriction (and thus
why we can't have // begin a relative XRI reference).
-Gabe
From: Drummond
Reed [mailto:drummond.reed@cordance.net]
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2005
2:37 PM
To: 'Dave McAlpin';
xri@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [xri] Relative XRIs
I noticed the same thing in my review but
didn't flag it. The one place we diverge from IRI and URI is in the rules around
the opening "//".
I would be in favor of realigning the XRI
2.0 rules so that for an absolute XRI:
1) "xri:" (the scheme name) is
optional,
AND
2) IF an XRI starts with a GCS character,
then "//" is also optional (i.e., the scheme name plus the "//"
can be left off). If the XRI does not start with a GCS character, then
"//" is not optional.
But by these rules the "//" can
always be included.
Mike, is this cool with you?
=Drummond
From: Dave McAlpin
[mailto:Dave.McAlpin@epok.net]
Sent: Monday, February 14,
2005 2:01 PM
To: xri@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [xri] Relative XRIs
There’s probably a good reason for this, but why is
“//www.epok.net” a valid relative reference as a URI and IRI but
not as an XRI?