* Thomas B. Passin | | In fact, we really do not want full xpointer syntax anyway - what | would be the meaning, say, of a range of characters between the 5th | char of the 3rd baseNameString element, and the 30th char of 5th | following resourceData element?

It would depend on the element used to carry that reference:

- <topicRef>: this would be an error, since <topicRef>s must point to <topic> elements,

- <resourceRef>: it's that string,

- <subjectIndicator>: it's that string as interpreted by a human.

| It is probably best to restrict xpointers to be bare xpointers only, | using text or a grammatical production.

I agree. We would have to use text, since the XTM syntax spec won't have any (other) grammar productions. DTDs are just fine for defining the syntax, though they need to be augmented by prose.

| An alternative would be to add a non-xlink pointer attribute of our | own, keep the xlink href but deprecate it, slowly switching over to | the new one. But that would make implementations a little more | complex.

It would, and it would mean a change, however small. I would very much prefer to only tighten the interpretation of the spec, and to not change the syntax at all.