XPath with XPointer and XLink

Another use for XPath is with the XPointer and XLink specifications. XLinks specify how one document links to another document, and XPointers specify locations inside a document. We'll see both of these in Chapter 6, but it's worth getting an overview now.

The XLink specification is a W3C recommendation, released on June 27, 2001. You can find the most current version of this recommendation at www.w3.org/TR/xlink. You use XLinks to link one document to another. Here's an example to give you an idea what an XLink looks like; unlike HTML hyperlinks , any element can be a link in XML. You specify that an element is a link with the attribute xlink:type like this, where we're creating a simple XLink:

 <MOVIE_REVIEW xmlns:xlink = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"     xlink:type = "simple"     xlink:show = "new"     xlink:href="http://www.starpowdermovies.com/reviews.xml">     Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House </MOVIE_REVIEW> 

In this case, we're creating a simple XLink, which is much like an HTML hyperlink, by setting the xlink:type attribute to "simple" . We're also setting the xlink:show attribute to "new" , which means that XLink-aware software should open the linked-to document in a new window or other display context, and setting the xlink:href attribute to the URI of the new document (which can be quite general and need not be in the URL form we've used here).

XLinks let you link to a particular document, but you often need to be more precise than that. XPointers let you point to specific locations inside a documentwithout having to modify that document by embedding special tags or markers. To point to a specific location in a document, the XPointer specification builds on the XPath specification. XPointers are in the W3C Working Draft stage, and you can learn more about them at www.w3.org/TR/xptr-framework/.

How do you add an XPointer to a document's URI to specify a specific location in a document? You can append # (following the HTML usage for URLs that specify link targets) and then xpointer() , placing the XPath expression you want to use in the parentheses. Here's an example:

 <MOVIE_REVIEW xmlns:xlink = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"     xlink:type = "simple"     xlink:show = "new"  xlink:href="http://www.starpowdermovies.com/reviews.xml#xpointer(/child::*[126])">  Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House </MOVIE_REVIEW> 

As you can see, XPath is central to a number of XML specifications. We'll see how XPath is used in these specifications in more detail, and with examples, later in the book.