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Subject: Re: DOCBOOK: Linking in DocBook (specifically for EBNF, but more generally as well)
At 01:36 PM 4/7/00 -0700, Terry Allen wrote: >| <nonterminal xlink:href="#foo"> > >1. Is this correct Xlink syntax for a pointer to a single target? >(I knew shortly after I read the Xlink spec but have forgotten.) It's correct XPointer syntax for identifying an element with this value for its ID-type attribute. >2. Is Xlink stable in this regard? The ID functionality is stable because XPath is already a W3C Recommendation. The #foo shortcut is specific to XPointer. I can't promise that it's stable, but XPointer has exited Last Call and will soon (I hope) enter its Candidate Recommendation period (sort of a beta period). >3. Has Xlink been implemented? In this case, it's XPointer. The CR period is supposed to determine whether the entire spec is implementable; we're anticipating success at this, since 95% of XPointer is XPath. I don't know any (e.g.) browsers that support XPointer yet in fragment identifiers on URIs, but that's not surprising. I know of some internal use of the #foo shortcut, where a trivial transform is done to turn it into a classic IDREF. >4. Will "#foo" work like ID/IDREF in current tools? (I would >think it wouldn't.) No. >I see the need, but I'd like not to get to the party too early. DocBook has been waiting for linking standards to stabilize for at least five years; perhaps we won't have to wait much longer. We don't have to decide to go the one-attribute route right away, but the two-element solution that you suggest seems to be merely an artifact of the lack of expressive power in DTDs, and it would be a shame if that were the long-term solution. (By the way...the RELAX schema language allows you to define alternative versions of element constraints based on attribute values, which would be a neat way out of this design dilemma. :-) I'd rather have two attributes and an extra-DTD constraint than two elements. Eve Eve Maler +1 781 442 3190 Sun Microsystems XML Technology Center elm @ east.sun.com
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