[DAS2] standardizing 'id' use

[Andrew Dalke]

In the versioned source request the namespace result looks like

     <NAMESPACES>
       <NAMESPACE id="volvox/1/type">Feature types
          <FORMAT id="das2xml" type="text/x-das-featuretype+xml" />
          <FORMAT id="compact" type="text/x-das-featuretype+compact" />
       </NAMESPACE>

The documentation says

<FORMAT>
  A data format recognized by this server. The id attribute is the   
short name of the format for use in the GET URL, and the type attribute  
is the returned document's MIME type.

I assume the format id is the one used in fetching information
about the features, and that an example of the GET is

http://server/das/genome/sourceid/version/feature?format=format; 
filter1=value;filter2=value...


In most places the term "id" is used for URIs.  Eg

   """The id attribute is a  URI (typically in the form of a
     relative URL) that identifies this data source. """

   """Each feature, subfeature and location has a URL-based ID."""

   """The id attribute is a URI that identifies  this version"""

I would like the use of the 'id' attribute to be consistent
across DAS/2.  In that way there can be a section at the top
of the document which says "the 'id' attribute is always a URI.
Relative URIs are resolved ...." instead of documenting it
for each element.

Could this use of "id" be turned into "name"?  Or "format"?


The other two places that use "id" for something other than
a URI are

CAPABILITIES>
       <METHOD id="GET" />
       <METHOD id="PUT" />
       <METHOD id="DELETE" />
       <METHOD id="POST" />
</CAPABILITIES>


I propose using "name" here as well.  I checked -- the
HTTP/1.1 spec just uses the word "method" to describe these
   http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec5.html#sec5.1
and
   <METHOD method="GET" />
seem too redundant.  But I'm fine with that too.


The other place that uses 'id' is in the types request.
The list of properties for a given types looks like

     <PROP id="bg:glyph"     value="box" />
     <PROP id="bg:bgcolor"   value="white" />
     <PROP id="bg:fgcolor"   value="black" />
     <PROP id="bg:key"       value="tRNAs" />

Again here I would prefer "name" or "key".  I
think we talked about this last fall and I was
overruled, but I'll try again.  ;)

					Andrew
					dalke at dalkescientific.com