Re: [topicmaps-comment] mergeMap Pointing to More Than One topicMapElement

[Murray Altheim <m.altheim@open.ac.uk>]

W. Eliot Kimber wrote:

> The XTM 1.0 spec says fairly clearly that mergeMap points to a [single]
> topicMap element. 
> 
> However, if you have a topic map document whose root element is not in
> the XTM name space, then it's possible to have multiple topicMap
> elements in a single document, which means that an XPath could easily
> address them, e.g.: <mergeMap xlink:href="//topicMap"/>.
> 
> I am implementing a mergeMap resolver--there's no reason I can't support
> and process mergeMap elements that address a list of topicMap elements.
> However, the standard appears to disallow this case.
> 
> My question: should I report addressing of more than one topicMap
> element as a reportable topic map error or should the XTM spec be
> ammended to allow mergeMap to address multiple topicMap elements?


Eliot,

I won't pretend to be the authority here, but I can say pretty
unequivocally that we specifically prohibited any other XML
namespaces in the exchange syntax of XTM precisely to disallow
the possibility of such ambiguous document structures, so my
take on this is that this case should be considered a reportable
topic map error, i.e., a document that simply does not conform
to the XTM 1.0 Specification or validate according to the XTM DTD.

Murray

......................................................................
Murray Altheim                  <http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/>
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK

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