Graham wrote:
On 17 Jul 2005, at 7:18 pm, Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote:
Read e.g. <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/uri/2004Jan/0012>.
So the assertion is that if a link happens to be the same as xml:base,
then the current document should be considered to *be* the document at
xml:base? That's ludicrous and arbitrary.
No. It requires the correct point of view of what a base URI actually
means. It's not just a handy tool to shorten URI references. It is meant
to indicate the original URI of the content, for when the context is
used somewhere else. It has always been that way, see f.e. a quote from
a really old HTML spec (1992):
Base Address
Anchors specify addresses of other documents, in a from relative to the
address of the current document. Normally, the address of a document is
known to the browser because it was used to access the document.
However, is a document is mailed, or is somehow visible with more than
one address (for example, via its filename and also via its library name
server catalogue number), then the browser needs to know the base
address in order to correctly deduce external document addresses.
http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/Tags.html#11
Nowadays good examples are Google cache, the wayback machine and XInclude.
--
Sjoerd Visscher
http://w3future.com/weblog/
