? XLink/Pointer expressiveness

[james anderson]

greetings,

i have a question for the "xlink/x-pointer" proficient:

how would i express several references to subelements of a remote resource?

if xml were referentially transparent, something like (taking an simplistic case)

<patient id="01">
 <name>
  <first>edward</first>
  <last>dolittle</last>
  </name>
 <history id="02" href="http://hostpital/patients?name=edward.dolittle" />
 <last-treatment
  href="http://hostpital/patients?name=edward.dolittle#child(-1,treatment)" />
 </patient>

wouldn't trouble me. but xml is not, so i would like to do something like:

<patient id="01">
 <name>
  <first>edward</first>
  <last>dolittle</last>
  </name>
 <history id="02" href="http://hostpital/patients?name=edward.dolittle" />
 <last-treatment href="id(02).child(-1,treatment)" />
 </patient>

which makes intuitive sense, but not necessarily structural sense - depending
on the document model and link behaviour.

?
are the fine points to link behaviour / type which are intended to govern such situations?

?

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