XML-LINK and IDREF

Mon Jun 2 13:14:57 BST 1997

While we're on the subject of linking, I'm intrigued about the status of
the IDREF attribute type in XML.

In the SGML world, simple links within a document are mostly done with
IDREF -> ID, e.g.:

<div1 id="chap.beginnings"><head>New Beginnings</head>
<p> ...
...
<p>As we saw earlier in <ref target="chap.beginnings">Chapter 5</ref>,
...

(where the TARGET attribute has type IDREFS).  Browsers such as Panorama
recognise and support these links natively.

Is the intention in XML that IDREF(S) attributes are only supported "for
compatibility", and that the XML simple link should be used instead,
i.e.:

...
<p>As we saw earlier in <ref HREF="#chap.beginnings">Chapter 5</ref>,
...

(where REF is now defined as having attribute XML-LINK="simple") ?

This obviously has implications for XML processors.

Richard Light.

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