XOM API for Processing XML with Java

[Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo AT metalab.unc.edu>]

I am exploring the API for base URLs. My current thinking is that there 
will be two methods in the Node class with the following signatures:


public final String getBaseURI()
public final void   setBaseURI(String uri)


Here are some open questions about this I'd appreciate feedback on:

1. Should I make any checks that this is a legal URI? That is,
should I check that these values are syntactically correct URIs 
according to RFC 2396? I do make these checks for namespace URIs, (which 
is aggressive in itself) but here nothing you could put in this property 
 would make the document malformed.

2. Should I allow relative URIs or only absolute URIs?

3. Should I allow URIs at all, or should this just be a URL?

4. By default most nodes created in memory will have null base URIs 
unless specifcally set otherwise. What happens when such a URI is 
appended to or inserted in a parent that has a base URI? Doe sit inherit 
the base URI of its parent or not?

5. If nodes with null URIs do inherit their parent's base URI, what 
happens when the node is detached? Does it keep the parent's base URI?
What if it's later added to a different node with a different base URI?

6. How do I handle xml:base attributes? Should they be included in an 
element's list of attributes? Should the setBaseURI method check for 
conflicts with an xml:base attribute? What should it do if it notices 
one? Should extra xml:base attributes be automatically generated as 
necessary when the document is serialized?

7. What have I forgotten?

--
Elliotte