[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: So maybe ID isn't a problem after all.
On 01/11/13 10:48 AM, "Jim Ancona" <scarhill@y...> wrote: > --- Bob Hutchison <hutch@x...> wrote: >> To represent these graph structures in a useful way, I've found that a >> globally unique identifier is needed. This is because, in my experience, >> some elements begin to appear in more than one document generated by the >> application. In other words graph structures rarely are, in my experience, >> confined to a single document. Something can be an ID and not satisfy the >> practical requirements for graph representation. > > A URI+fragment identifier IS a globally unique identifier (assuming that the > fragment identifier points to an element named by an ID, as XPointer says). So > cross-document graphs may be represented with a URI Reference interpreted as > an > XPointer Bare Name. > > <snip/> > >> So, I don't believe IDs are sufficient for the practical requirements of >> graph structures, and XML doesn't support any kind of application >> independent means of representing graph structures anyway. > > What about XPointer? XPointer still works through attributes, right? So you get things like <replaceMe ref="..."/>. How does an application know, from XML syntax alone that, the element should be replaced by what it is referring to? (I could be more precise here I suppose: how is the application supposed to know that the <replaceMe> element is identical to what it is referring to -- is that English?) I thing that describing something as 'application independent' (here) requires the existence of XML syntax that equates <replaceMe> with what it is referring to. Now, given that the application knows about graphing then using a URI to specify the reference is certainly workable in many cases, I would imagine. But this is getting pretty close to assuming a URL. In the project I was referring to, a URL wouldn't work because the object wasn't locatable that way. It was nameable (gosh) and so a URN would work. Do XPointers work with URNs? Cheers, Bob > > Jim > > ===== > Jim Ancona > jim@a... jancona@x... > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Find the one for you at Yahoo! Personals > http://personals.yahoo.com
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