XOM API for Processing XML with Java

[John Cowan <jcowan AT reutershealth.com>]

Elliotte Rusty Harold scripsit:

> 1. Should I make any checks that this is a legal URI? 

Yes.

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

Absolute only.

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

In practice you cannot really control this, because there might be a new
scheme you don't know about yet.  So the most you could do would be to
reject URIs beginning "urn:"; unfortunately, not all URNs begin with "urn:".

> 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?

I can't decide on this one.

> 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?

The base URI of a Node should remain stable, no matter how the Node moves.

> 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?

xml:base attributes should be assimilated to set the base URI, and should
not appear as Attribute nodes.  IOW, the same treatment namespaces get.

-- 
John Cowan                              jcowan AT reutershealth.com
http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              http://www.reutershealth.com
Thor Heyerdahl recounts his attempt to prove Rudyard Kipling's theory
that the mongoose first came to India on a raft from Polynesia.
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