Re: Media typs and XPointer, XLink, XPath, and XSLT

John Cowan wrote:
> Rick Jelliffe wrote:
> > I am confused about a related question: I have heard somewhere that
> > the XPointer group was going to make XPointers only valid for pointing
> > into XML documents.  So, for example, it would not be legitimate for
> > an XPointer to point into a WebCGM document or other structured data.  Is 
> > this true?
> Since XPointers refer explicitly to element trees with attributes,
> an XPointer into CGM (which is a binary format) wouldn't make
> much sense.  The real issue is whether XPointers can point into
> things like SMIL documents, which "just happen" to be encoded
> in XML.
Certainly from the XHTML perspective, the ability to refer to other XML
grammars via XPointer/XLink is critical.  Imaging an XHTML document that
uses some new element defined against XLink to import SVG graphics into
a page or a SYMM presentation. These are XML grammars, and they should
work.

However, it might also be useful to import other things - like plain
text.  XPointer/XLink needs to work for this as well.  I don't see how
we can limit the scope of the target.  You might need to treat the
imported item as a BLOB (Binary Large Object), but it should still be
imported.  At least, that's my opinion.
--
Shane P. McCarron                  phone: +1 612 434-4431
Testing Research Manager             fax: +1 612 434-4318
                                  mobile: +1 612 799-6942
                                  e-mail: 
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