Xlinks - Xpointers Terminology

Before discussing XLinks and XPointers we need to know some of the terminology that will appear in this chapter. The World Wide Web Consortium has defined the following terminology with relation to XLinks and XPointers:

application

An XLink application is any software module that interprets XML documents containing XLink links or documents that participate in a link. This specification defines the conformance requirements for XLink applications.

arc

A specification of link traversal rules, including information about the direction and also possibly the context of traversal.

ending resource

A resource or sub resource in the "to "position of a pair of participating resources, as specified or implied by a link's arcs. Depending on the characteristics of the link, it consists of one of the following:

• A resource type element
• The resource addressed in a locator type element, or
• The resource addressed in a simple type element hyperlink

An explicit relationship between two or more resources or portions of resources with an eye to presentation and traversal in user interfaces.

inline link

A link where some content in the linking element serves, by virtue of its presence inside the linking element, as a participating resource.

Link

A relationship between resources or portions of resources, encoded as an XLink linking element.

linking element

An XLink element that asserts the existence and describes the characteristics of a link. local resource

Document content that becomes the participating resource of a linking element by virtue of being inside (or itself being) a linking element.

Locator

Data that identifies, by address or identifier, a remote resource that is participating in the link.

multi directional link

A link whose traversal can be initiated from more than one of its participating resources. Note that being able to "go back" after traversing a one directional link does not make the link multi directional.

out of line link

A link whose only participating resources are remote. Out of line links are required for allowing traversal to be initiated from a resource to which the link creator does not have write access.

participating resource

A resource that takes part in a link. All resources are potential contributors to a link; participating resources are the actual contributors to a particular link.

remote resource

Any participating resource of a link that is pointed to explicitly with a locator. Resource An addressable unit of information or service. Examples include files, images, documents, programs, and query results. XLink allows for the association of resources and portions of resources by means of links.

starting resource

A resource or sub resource in the "from "position of a pair of participating resources, as specified or implied by a link's arcs. Depending on the characteristics of the link, it consists of one of the following:

• A resource type element
• The resource addressed in a locator type element
• Asimple type element

sub resource

A portion of a resource, pointed to as the precise destination of a link. For example, if the whole resource is an XML document, the sub resource might be a particular element inside the document. Traversal might result in highlighting that element, scrolling to that point in the document, embedding that element in the display of the starting resource, etc.

traversal

The action of using a link; viz, of accessing a resource. Traversal may be initiated by a user action (for example, clicking on a local resource of an inline linking element) or may occur under program control.

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