It would be good if we could extend the MIME registry of media
types to include, where possibly, a description of how
"fragment identifiers" apply to that media type.
Currently this information is not in the media type registry,
and fragment identifiers are, in practice, only used for HTML.
To make this useful might mean some extensions to current
platform definitions of MIME dispatch (to pass along the
fragment identifier to the media type rendering agent), but
it was desirable to have named or identified components for
other types. If there's a general definition of how this
works for XML types that aren't otherwise specified, that's
great, too.
Larry
--
http://www.parc.xerox.com/masinter
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ietf-xml-mime(_at_)imc(_dot_)org
[mailto:owner-ietf-xml-mime(_at_)imc(_dot_)org]On
Behalf Of MURATA Makoto
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 1999 6:57 PM
To: ietf-xml-mime(_at_)imc(_dot_)org
Subject: Media types, fragment identifiers, and XPointer
It appears that media types, fragment identifiers, and XPointer are
actually related.
In my understanding, URIs can have fragment identifiers such as "#foo".
How to interpret fragment identifiers depends on the media type. (Could
somebody provide pointers to relevant RFCs?)
On the other hand, the XML community is developing a mechanism called
XPointer.
(http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xptr)
"XPointers operate on the tree defined by the elements and other
markup constructs of an XML document.
An XPointer consists of a series of location terms, each of which
specifies a location, usually relative to the location specified by
the prior location term. Each location term has a keyword (such as id,
child, ancestor, and so on) and can have arguments such as an instance
number, element type, or attribute. For example, the location term
child(2,CHAP) refers to the second child element whose type is CHAP."
XPointer is intended to be used as a fragment identifier.
"The locator for a resource is typically provided by means of a
Uniform Resource Identifier, or URI. XPointers can be used as fragment
identifiers in conjunction with the URI structure to specify a
more precise
sub-resource."
I personally have expected that XPointer is usable for every XML document
no matter what the media type is. But I am apparently wrong. Do we need
a top-level media type "xml" or some convention such as "image/xml.vml"
so that XPointer can be used for any XML document? Or, are "text/xml" and
"application/xml" enough?
Cheers,
Makoto
Fuji Xerox Information Systems
Tel: +81-44-812-7230 Fax: +81-44-812-7231
E-mail: murata(_at_)apsdc(_dot_)ksp(_dot_)fujixerox(_dot_)co(_dot_)jp