17.5 on IRIs

[Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>]

Greetings,

To continue the discussion from the call this morning, I would call 
everyone's attention to a prior suggestion by Michael (I overlooked this):

> *Every IRI reference that is not a relative-path reference does* not
> > need any special processing. This especially means that absolute-paths
> > do not reference files inside the package, but within the hierarchy the
> > package is contained in, for instance the file system. IRI references
> > inside a package may leave the package, but once they have left the
> > package, they never can return into the package or another one.
Note that we still have:

"but within the hierarchy the package is contained in, for instance the 
file system."

which doesn't make sense, or at least not at first.

To some degree guessing on my part but I think the language of both the 
first and second sentence were meant to be talking about IRIs that are 
not relative paths.

Thus:

First sentence: wants to say: No special rules for non-relative path 
references. (ok by me)

Second sentence wants to say: Repeats about absolute paths don't 
reference files in the package (repetition but ok) *and* that absolute 
path IRI can reference packages, for example in a file system.

In other words, the second part of the second sentence was simply an 
*observation* about the capacity of an absolute path IRI.

Third sentence wants to say: IRI can point to something outside the 
package (ok) but once it leaves it can't come back. ???

Well, but IRIs only point to one location and since we don't have link 
hubs (XLink feature) there is no known mechanism for a single IRI to 
point outside of a package and then back into a package. Noting that we 
have already said that absolute IRI can't point into a package.

OK, having gone the long way around (apologies but I wanted it to be 
clear that remarks from others and not any cleverness on my part has 
resulted in the following) here is what I would propose to "fix" the 
paragraph in question:

****
Every IRI reference that is not a relative-path reference does not need 
any special processing. Absolute-paths can not reference files inside a 
package, but may, for instance, address packages that are held in a file 
hierarchy. IRI references inside a package may address anything 
addressable by an IRI that is outside of a package, but no IRI outside 
of a package may address any location within any package.
****

A bit wordy for me and I would suggest further edits on the second 
sentence, now that I suspect we know what was meant and to replace the 
paragraph with:

****
Every IRI reference that is not a relative-path reference does not need 
any special processing. Absolute-paths can not reference files inside a 
package. IRI references inside a package may address anything 
addressable by an IRI that is outside of a package, but no IRI outside 
of a package may address any location within any package
****

The second half of the third sentence strikes me as redundant with the 
second sentence. So, my personal preference would be:

****
Every IRI reference that is not a relative-path reference does not need 
any special processing. An absolute-path IRI can not reference files 
inside a package. IRI references inside a package may address anything 
addressable by an IRI that is outside of a package.
****

Note that I started to say "that is outside of *the* package" to make 
reference to the package containing the IRI but that would be wrong 
because we don't want absolute IRIs addressing files in *any* package.

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Patrick

-- 
Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)