Status of this Memo

This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.

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Copyright Notice

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002). All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

This document specifies a content-type() scheme for use in XPointer-based fragment identifiers. This scheme, like other XPointer Framework[12] schemes, is designed primarily for use with the XML Media Types defined in RFC 3023[5], to identify locations within a given XML representation of a resource, though it may potentially be used to mix schemes for XML and non-XML representations. The content-type() scheme notifies an XPointer processor whether the creator of the XPointer intended for a particular pointer part to apply to a resource representation which uses a particular MIME content type identifier.

Table of Contents

1.  Introduction
2.  Justification
3.  Syntax
4.  Processing
5.  Relation to MIME Media Types
6.  Other MIME issues
7.  Conformance
8.  Security Considerations
9.  IANA Considerations
§  References
§  Author's Address
A.  Acknowledgements
B.  Revision History
§  Full Copyright Statement

1. Introduction

The content-type() scheme is intended to be used within the XPointer Framework[12] to support the addressing of nodes within XML (and potentially other) documents. Pointer parts using the content-type() scheme will always fail, as they do not identify portions of an XML document, but they can communicate (though not enforce) expectations for processing of later parts of an XPointer.

2. Justification

Even if all of the possible representations of a resource are themselves XML, they may contain very different structures and labels. The impact of that variability will vary with the nature of the representations, but it may cause various schemes used within the XPointer Framework[12] (including xpointer()[15], element()[14], and xpath1()[16]) to return different answers if the representation of the resource is of an unexpected type.

While content-type() pointer parts can never provide more than a suggestion, they may be helpful in coordinating program behavior or at least giving a human reader a clue as to why fragment identifiers are behaving differently than expected.

3. Syntax

The scheme name is "content-type". The scheme data syntax is as follows; if scheme data in a pointer part with the content-type() scheme does not conform to the syntax defined in this section, it is an error and the pointer part fails.

content-type() Scheme Syntax:

type must be a MIME Content-Type identifier conforming to RFC 2046[1], and should preferably be a registered type, as registration provides a medium in which to describe the different kinds of fragment identifiers which may apply to a particular type.

4. Processing

The XPointer Framework provides limited support for specifying XML processing context. The xmlns()[13] scheme provides support for identifying mappings between prefixes used in pointer parts and namespace URIs, changing the processing context of later pointer parts. By definition, the xmlns() scheme "never identifies a subresource and thus always fails". The content-type() scheme relies on a similar mechanism, but because of the XPointer framework's consumption of failures inside an XPointer expression, there is no way for content-type() generally to signal an error.

A typical use for content-type would just signal to which representation a given XPointer is likely to apply:

In this case, the XPointer may fail if fed the wrong representation, but at least a developer might have a chance of figuring out why the failure is taking place.

In the event that an XPointer processor provides explicit support for the content-type() scheme, it should do its best to find a representation specified by each content-type() part, conceivably making multiple attempts to retrieve an acceptable representation. For example, if an XPointer using content-type() looked like:

then the processor should first attempt to retrieve an XHTML representation of the resource, then find the seventh child of the first element in the document. If that didn't return a node, it would attempt to retrieve an SVG representation, then find the fourth child of the first element in the document. If that didn't return a node, it would attempt to retrieve a MathML representation, and return the the third child of the first element in the document.

This will not likely work in most XPointer processors, as the representation of the resource will likely have been set at some point earlier in the process without fragment identifier consultation, and the XPointer processor will likely grab the seventh child element of the first element in the document regardless of whether it was represented as XHTML, SVG, or MathML. It does, however, raise the question of how XPointer and content-negotiation interact (or don't.)

5. Relation to MIME Media Types

This scheme is somewhat separate from association with any particular MIME type, but it could conceivably be used with any registration made in accordance with RFC 2046[1] and RFC 2048[2].

6. Other MIME issues

There may be other aspects of MIME content-negotiation worth considering in this context. Content-features, charset, and other parameters may in some circumstances affect XPointer processing. Consideration of those issues is left for other drafts.

7. Conformance

This specification normatively depends on the XPointer Framework[12], except insofar as it rejects the claim in Section 3.3 that "this specification reserves all scheme names for definition in additional W3C XPointer scheme specifications".

While XPointer processors may simply ignore content-type() pointer parts with only occasional damage, those explicitly claiming support for the content-type() scheme should support content-negotiation and attempt to supply the context requested by the content-type() pointer part or parts.

8. Security Considerations

There may be security considerations involved in content-negotiation, but they are outside of the scope of this document.

9. IANA Considerations

None.

References

Author's Address

Appendix A. Acknowledgements

Thanks to Uche Ogbuji and Eric van der Vlist for inspiration.

Appendix B. Revision History

00 - First version.

[To be deleted before publication.]

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Acknowledgement

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