Subject: [rfc-i] <format> element

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2021 08:23:55 +0100

So I did a few tests with the <format> element, documented in
<https://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/rfc7749.html#element.format> and
<https://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/rfc7991.html#element.format>.

(test input and output attached)

Observations:

1) xml2rfc v1's text output ignores <format> and uses @target when
present to add the URI to the end of the reference.

2) xml2rfc v1's HTML output uses @target when present to hyperlink the
doc title. When absent, it uses <format> instead, if there is a single
one. If there are multiple ones, they are all added to the end of the
reference.

3) xml2rfc current, in v2 mode, ignores <format>.

4) xml2rfc current, in v3 mode, uses the *first* <format> element as a
fallback for a missing @target attribute, otherwise ignores <format>
completely.

5) rfc2629.xslt igores <format>

6) xml2rfc''s prep-tool format preserves <format>, which is a bug
according to
<https://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/rfc7998.html#rfc.section.5.6.6>.

Recommendations:

a) Public IETF <reference> resources should not use <format> at all.

b) xml2rfc's preptool should be fixed to remove those.

c) xml2rfc's v3 output mode should be fixed to ignore those.

Best regards, Julian
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From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2021 08:54:49 +0100

> Recommendations:

OK, these are pretty obvious when the goal is to implement RFC 7991.

I’m actually more interested what v3.next should say.

Putting the target links into an element has the advantage that one can have multiple links.
I think we have run into the need to do that in several places,

Grüße, Carsten

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2021 09:16:57 +0100

Am 22.02.2021 um 08:54 schrieb Carsten Bormann:
> On 22. Feb 2021, at 08:23, Julian Reschke <[email-masked]
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>>
>> Recommendations:
>

There's always <annotation> into which you can put any kind of prose.

Best regards, Julian

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From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2021 09:22:46 +0100

> There's always <annotation> into which you can put any kind of prose.

OK, so you would put a couple of <eref>s there, with plain text that elucidates the link relationship.  (Was thinking of something closer to RFC 8288 here, but that is of course harder to format into text.)

(<eref> hasn’t been treated very well in previous versions of xml2rfc, so I tried to never use it.  Maybe it can emerge into its prime now…)

We could simply add <annotation> to <author> to solve that other problem…

Grüße, Carsten