xpointer - just a location mechanism?

[Frank Boumphrey]

XPointer uses the 'to' keyword to isolate out a section of the document eg
someurl.xml#id1 to id2.

Frank
----- Original Message -----
From: Roger L. Costello <costello at mitre.org>
To: <xml-dev at ic.ac.uk>
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 1999 11:34 AM
Subject: xpointer - just a location mechanism?


> Hi Folks,
>
> I am making my way through the latest xpointer spec.  I may be missing
> something (I am not finished reading it) but it appears that the spec
> does not support the xLink capability of embedding[1] a portion of an
> XML document into the currently active document.  Consider this simple
> xLink with a xpointer:
>
> <xlink:simple
>     href="http://www.somewhere.com/BookCatalogue.xml#xpointer(/Book[1])"
>     show="parsed"/>
>
> This hyperlink should result in extracting out of BookCatalogue.xml the
> subtree referenced by the first Book element, and embedding it into the
> current active document.  (This is my understanding of how this should
> work.  Please correct me if I am in error.)
>
> The xpointer spec states that an XPointer is simply a location
> mechanism.  In section 2.4 it states:
>
> "XPointers are not a general query mechanism, they are a specification
> of document locations."
>
> I read this as saying "an xpointer defines how to move a cursor around
> in an XML document.  It does not describe what a location means in terms
> of nodes (or strings) being referenced."
>
> If the spec doesn't describe what the movement of a cursor to a location
> means in terms of node lists (or strings) then how is it going to
> support the xLink embed mechanism?  /Roger
>
>
> [1] From the xLink spec: "The parsed option (of the show attribute),
> relating directly to the XML concept of a parsed entity, indicates that
> the content should be integrated into the document from which the link
> was actuated."
>
>
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