[rdfweb-dev] embedded RDF

[Max Froumentin]

Hi,

I know that the question of RDF within XML and XHTML in particular has
been discussed a lot, but I haven't found the particular case below
discussed.

The problem is to have RDF statements that describe can any part of the
language it's embedded in. for instance,

<s:root>
  <quote author="Louis XV">L'etat c'est moi</quote>
  <rdf:Resource rdf:about="??" s:comment="wrong"/>
</s:root>

I want the RDF statement to be about the value of the bar attribute.
(it could be about the foo element too).  Therefore it seems that in
the rdf:about I need to provide the URI of it. What's that URI?

The only way I know of would be to write: 

rdf:about="#xpointer(/s:root/quote/@author)"

the problem is that I only want to refer to elements and attributes, and
xpointer can return node sets, ranges, strings, etc. which I don't need.
I see two ways out of this:

- define my own subset of XPointer
- ask the XML Core WG to write an attribute() xpointer scheme. There
  already is an xpointer element() scheme. Apparently the WG have no
  current plans to do so.

Since I imagine that this problem is not that specific, I suspect that
others may have run into it (I'm thinking of Annotea perhaps), so
suggestions are welcome.

Max.