On Thu, Nov 15, 2001 at 02:58:45PM +0100, Jirka Kosek wrote: > Yann Dirson wrote: > > > 2. "xlink:href" is, well, much less sexy than "linkend", and the name > > does not really reflect the semantics attached to the attribute as > > much as "linkend" does - and my guess is that "href" originates from > > HTML, and that W3C decided not break compatibility in XHTML, right ? > > Although it's cool for XHTML authors, I'm sure it would be as cool for > > DocBook authors not to have compatibility broken either. > > There is another issue with using xlink:href compared to linkend. > linkend attribute is of IDREF type. So if you want to check consistency > of your inter-document links, you just run validation on your document. > Some XML editors are even capable to provide you with a list of already > defined IDs when you are inserting new link.
...and consequentely "linkend" cannot be architecturally mapped to xlink:href, so my suggestion to use an AF is ruled out. Good point. > <xref xlink:href="#some_id_in_doc"/> > > This link can't be checked by validation, you must check it when > processing document by stylesheet or some clever XLink processor (if > there is any). Or does Xpointer or XLink attach strong IDREF-like semantics to these "href"s ? Or if not would it be possible that an evolution of those would do so ? > Considering validation and comfortable editing issues I'm not sure > whether removing linkend in future is wise. But having two attributes > (linkend, xlink:href) for doing almost same in parallel brings many > troubles and uncertainity in processing as Norm pointed earlier. Wild thought: would it be sufficient to keep the IDREF-based mechanism for current linking elements (Link/XRef), maybe depreciate ULink, and add XLink support only to elements other than Link/XRef (which may not need XLink anyway) ? [maybe I missed other elements in addition to Link and XRef] That would address the most of compatibility problem, as well the validation one. -- Yann Dirson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.alcove.com/ Free-Software Engineer Ing�nieur Logiciel-Libre Free-Software time manager Responsable du temps Informatique-Libre Debian GNU/Linux developper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ---------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe or unsubscribe from this elist use the subscription manager: <http://lists.oasis-open.org/ob/adm.pl>
