Re: [xsl] Browser support for X-link - Xpointer

["Colin Adams" <colinpauladams@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 05/02/2008, Andrew Welch <andrew.j.welch@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> As far as I know, XLink and XPointer never really took off.
>
> Linking tends to be done in the presentation layer, and XPath really
> takes care of pointing to fragments of XML.

The XLink specification tends to be referenced by other
specifications. As far as implementations go, you may well be right.

As for XPointer, it is widely used.

You say XPath takes care of pointing to XML fragments - sure - but
when you need a URI this must take the form of an xpath1 or xpath2
XPointer scheme (Gestalt supports the latter, for instance).

If you want to transform an XML document via an embeded
transformation, then you must specify a URI with a fragment
identifier. This must take the form of an XPointer. The commonest
XPointer to use is a shorthand pointer, which directs the processor to
an element with and xml:id attribute (or other attribute of type ID or
xs:ID perhaps) whose value equals the shorthand pointer. But you can
also use any XPointer scheme supported by the XSLT processor (Gestalt
additionally supports the element scheme).