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Re: "There are six XLink elements" - True or False? Discuss

• To: AndrewWatt2000@a...
• Subject: Re: "There are six XLink elements" - True or False? Discuss
• From: "Eve L. Maler" <eve.maler@s...>
• Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2002 14:45:47 -0500
• Cc: www-xml-linking-comments@w..., xml-dev@l...
• References: <11c.d76d079.29ba20e1@a...>
• User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:0.9.4) Gecko/20011128 Netscape6/6.2.1

I had thought there was a formal definition of the term in there, but 
on looking at it now, I see there isn't.  In presentations and 
tutorials I've done, I have defined "XLink element" as shorthand for 
an element that has an xlink:type attribute and conforms to the 
constraints dictated by the type chosen.  (Also note that "XLink 
element type" has the same problem.)

I don't think the terms are actually misleading, since the spec goes 
to great pains to describe how elements get connected to XLink (e.g., 
see the Markup Conformance section).  But the terms should be formally 
defined somewhere.

	Eve

AndrewWatt2000@a... wrote:

> Chapter 2.1 of the XLink Recommendation states, "There are six XLink elements 
> ..."
> 
> But, a careful search of the XLink Recommendation reveals only XLink 
> attributes. No XLink elements in the final Recommendation ... at least in the 
> sense of elements in the XLink namespace ... although elements in the XLink 
> namespace had appeared in earlier drafts of the XLink specification.
> 
> It seems ... to me at least ... perverse to use a term "XLink element" to 
> refer to elements other than those (of which there are none) which are in the 
> XLink namespace.
> 
> I can see that the XLink WG sought a succinct term to refer to "an XML 
> element in a non-XLink namespace which bears an attribute which is in the 
> XLink namespace". The term "XLink element" is substantially shorter.
> 
> But should brevity be bought at the price of being misleading?
> 
> Andrew Watt
> 
> 
> 


-- 
Eve Maler                                    +1 781 442 3190
Sun Microsystems XML Technology Center   eve.maler @ sun.com

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