Re: [xdi] The simple realization that & is a context symbol

["=Drummond Reed" <drummond.reed@xdi.org>]

Thanks for checking, Joseph. I'm wondering if we want to have a summary of context symbols in the Core spec just for convenience. But it's not a priority right now.

On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 7:05 AM, Joseph Boyle <planetwork@josephboyle.net> wrote:

It looks like the Core spec already describes & as a context symbol in 3.5.4.

The spec does not currently list all context symbols in one place or use the term “context function”, but describes each individually.

On May 15, 2014, at 11:24 PM, =Drummond Reed <drummond.reed@xdi.org> wrote:

Yes, it's actually pretty obvious, it was just one of those mental categorization issues that I hadn't been considering it a context symbol.

On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 10:39 PM, Markus Sabadello <markus.sabadello@xdi.org> wrote:

In XDI2, that's how it is, i.e. it's implemented as a context symbol:

https://github.com/projectdanube/xdi2/blob/master/core/src/main/java/xdi2/core/constants/XDIConstants.java

Markus

On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 6:17 AM, =Drummond Reed <drummond.reed@xdi.org> wrote:

Joseph et al:

Don't ask me why, but when waking up this morning from jet lag in London, I was thinking about how to best explain the XDI context symbols and suddenly realized that I had never included & as a context symbol.

That might sound strange, since & as a context symbol cannot be followed by any other character, i.e., it always stands alone as the terminal context representing a literal value.

But it is still:

• A symbol
• That represents a context node
• That has a specific semantics

So it seems that we must include it in our list of context symbols, meaning we actually have 8 context symbols and not 7.

Does everyone agree?

If so, Joseph, I think we should reflect that in any text or table we have in the XDI Core spec summarizing context symbols.

=Drummond 

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