Missing feature in XIncludeTransformer

[Andrew Cave <aj...@ualberta.ca>]

Hello,

I noticed that Cocoon's XIncludeTransformer seems to be missing the base 
URI fixup support specified in the W3C's XInclude spec [1] (Careful, 
this is distinct from supporting xml:base to resolve relative xi:include 
hrefs against).

In short, it says that the base URIs of documents do not change when 
passed through an XInclude parser. This means that xml:base attributes 
with the value of the current base URI should be added to the top level 
included elements. To see an example, the xmllint parser (part of 
libxml2) will perform this attribute insertion when you enable XInclude 
processing.

I think this feature is important because otherwise, relative URIs (i.e. 
links) in an included document will break if the included document is 
not located in the same directory. Adding the xml:base attribute to the 
result gives later content handlers the ability to resolve relative URIs 
against the base. (In particular, I'm thinking of using XPath 2.0's 
resolve-uri function).

Any thoughts? Is this a feature we need to see?

I think this is the cleanest and most general solution for resolving 
relative URIs in included documents -- not to mention it's required by 
the XInclude spec. Pending discussion here, I've created a patch that 
adds this support that I can submit to JIRA.

--
Andrew Cave

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude/#base - The Base URI Fixup section of 
the W3C's XInclude specification

Re: Missing feature in XIncludeTransformer

[Grzegorz Kossakowski <gk...@apache.org>]

Andrew Cave pisze:
> I'm curious as to why this failed to generate responses. Maybe someone 
> could offer me some advice. Should I have just submitted my patch to 
> JIRA first, or is there something else I should have done?

Speaking about myself: I missed your mail because I was busy with lots of other things. Kind pinging our list (like you do so) does not hurt.

I comment your proposal below.

> Andrew Cave wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I noticed that Cocoon's XIncludeTransformer seems to be missing the 
>> base URI fixup support specified in the W3C's XInclude spec [1] 
>> (Careful, this is distinct from supporting xml:base to resolve 
>> relative xi:include hrefs against).
>>
>> In short, it says that the base URIs of documents do not change when 
>> passed through an XInclude parser. This means that xml:base attributes 
>> with the value of the current base URI should be added to the top 
>> level included elements. To see an example, the xmllint parser (part 
>> of libxml2) will perform this attribute insertion when you enable 
>> XInclude processing.
>>
>> I think this feature is important because otherwise, relative URIs 
>> (i.e. links) in an included document will break if the included 
>> document is not located in the same directory. Adding the xml:base 
>> attribute to the result gives later content handlers the ability to 
>> resolve relative URIs against the base. (In particular, I'm thinking 
>> of using XPath 2.0's resolve-uri function).
>>
>> Any thoughts? Is this a feature we need to see?
>>
>> I think this is the cleanest and most general solution for resolving 
>> relative URIs in included documents -- not to mention it's required by 
>> the XInclude spec. Pending discussion here, I've created a patch that 
>> adds this support that I can submit to JIRA.

I have taken a quick look at specification and everything what you said makes sense. Please submit a patch, preferably for both 2.1.x and 
trunk and I'll be happy to submit it. Submitting a test case for functionality you have implemented would be awesome.

-- 
Grzegorz Kossakowski
http://reflectingonthevicissitudes.wordpress.com/

Re: Missing feature in XIncludeTransformer

[Andrew Cave <aj...@ualberta.ca>]

I'm curious as to why this failed to generate responses. Maybe someone 
could offer me some advice. Should I have just submitted my patch to 
JIRA first, or is there something else I should have done?

Thanks,
Andrew Cave

Andrew Cave wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I noticed that Cocoon's XIncludeTransformer seems to be missing the 
> base URI fixup support specified in the W3C's XInclude spec [1] 
> (Careful, this is distinct from supporting xml:base to resolve 
> relative xi:include hrefs against).
>
> In short, it says that the base URIs of documents do not change when 
> passed through an XInclude parser. This means that xml:base attributes 
> with the value of the current base URI should be added to the top 
> level included elements. To see an example, the xmllint parser (part 
> of libxml2) will perform this attribute insertion when you enable 
> XInclude processing.
>
> I think this feature is important because otherwise, relative URIs 
> (i.e. links) in an included document will break if the included 
> document is not located in the same directory. Adding the xml:base 
> attribute to the result gives later content handlers the ability to 
> resolve relative URIs against the base. (In particular, I'm thinking 
> of using XPath 2.0's resolve-uri function).
>
> Any thoughts? Is this a feature we need to see?
>
> I think this is the cleanest and most general solution for resolving 
> relative URIs in included documents -- not to mention it's required by 
> the XInclude spec. Pending discussion here, I've created a patch that 
> adds this support that I can submit to JIRA.
>
> -- 
> Andrew Cave
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude/#base - The Base URI Fixup section 
> of the W3C's XInclude specification
>
>
>