[MOBY-dev] data by reference - a request for comments

[Dmitry Repchevsky]

Hello Martin,

> Yes, I saw and read this link - but, as often with me when I read the w3
> documents , I could not understand what is different, at all. I am glad,
> however, that XInclude is considered as a supersedor (I guess this word
> probably does not exist in Egnlish) of XLink. So we go with XInclude.
>   
There is a big difference between two.

XLink is a formalization of links inside XML. It doesn't specify the way 
of processing.
For an XML parser it's nothing but a set of attributes with xlink namespace.

Here is excerpt from XInclude specs:

> XLink does not specify a specific processing model, but simply 
> facilitates the detection of links and recognition of associated 
> metadata by a higher level application.

On the other hand,

> XInclude specifies a media-type specific (XML into XML) 
> transformation. It defines a specific processing model for merging 
> information sets. XInclude processing occurs at a low level, often by 
> a generic XInclude processor which makes the resulting information set 
> available to higher level applications.
Once you include XInclude into your XML it's up to a XML parser (in case 
it supports XInclude) to merge two XML (!) documents.
XInclude can treat the embedded document as an "xml" or as a "text" (in 
this way it will be escaped).

I wouldn't say that XInclude is "superior" to XLink - it's just for 
another purpose.

You can not to reference things with XInclude, but only inject another 
resource (xml or text).
You can put a reference using XLink, but in this way all the processing 
must be done by hand.

Best regards,

Dmitry