[DAS2] standardizing 'id' use

[Allen Day]

I agree with all of this.  For <PROP/> though you may want to allow both 
your proposed name/key attribute as well as id.  The ids given in the 
example, as I recall, are built-ins, but it is possible to define your own 
properties, in which case you'd want to reference as a URI using an id 
attribute.

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005, Andrew Dalke wrote:

> 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
> 
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