The W3C XML Linking Working Group has announced the release of XML Pointer Language (XPointer) Version 1.0 as a W3C Candidate Recommendation. The CR replaces the second last-call Working Draft version of January 08, 2001, and is open for public comment through March 4, 2002. XPointer is "built on top of the XML Path Language (XPath), which is an expression language underlying the XSL Transformations (XSLT) language. XPointer's extensions to XPath allow it to: (1) be used in URI references to address into resources; (2) address points and ranges as well as whole nodes; (3) locate information by string matching. XPointer supports addressing into the internal structures of XML documents and external parsed entities. It allows for examination of a document's hierarchical structure and choice of its internal parts based on various properties, such as element types, attribute values, character content, and relative position. In particular, it provides for specific reference to elements, character strings, and other XML information, whether or not they bear an explicit ID attribute. The specification defines XPointer as the language to be used as the basis for a fragment identifier for any URI reference that locates a resource whose Internet media type is one of text/xml, application/xml, text/xml-external-parsed-entity, or application/xml-external-parsed-entity."
Bibliographic information: XML Pointer Language (XPointer) Version 1.0. W3C Candidate Recommendation 11-September-2001. Edited by Steven DeRose (Brown University Scholarly Technology Group), Eve Maler (Sun Microsystems), and Ron Daniel Jr. (Interwoven). Version URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/CR-xptr-20010911/. Latest version URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr. Previous version URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-xptr-20010108/. The CR version is also available in XML format, with corresponding XML DTD and XSL stylesheet.
"The structures located with XPointer can be used as link targets or for any other application-specific purpose. This specification does not constrain what uses an application may make of locations identified by XPointers. In particular, implementation of traversal to a resource is not constrained by this specification, and whether user "traversal" is the purpose of an XPointer at all is application-dependent. A formatted-text browser traversal might scroll to and highlight the designated location; a structure-oriented graphical viewer or a document-relationship display might do traversal in quite a different way; and a search application, parser, archival system, or expert agent might use XPointers for other purposes entirely. The construction of linking elements in XML documents that associate arbitrary resources, including XML documents and portions thereof, is defined in a related specification, XLink."
