Re: HTML3 body tag

Dave Raggett (dsr@hplb.hpl.hp.com)
Thu, 9 Mar 1995 09:42:06 +0500


> I'm still planning to use HTML tables as a data transmission format for
> transmitting database information over the net. As I would desire that
> value lists (ie., lookup tables) for various codes be available to the
> document, I had planned on using URLs, hopefully graduating to URNs as
> they became more utilized. The idea of having an organization like ISO
> publish standardized code values would be a welcome standardization
> for database developers, and URNs or URIs would seem to be a necessary
> component for this to work effectively, especially as code lookups could
> conceivably be done live.

The HREF attribute can also be used for URNs. The URN attribute was
proposed as a means to allow you to specify both a URL and a URN.

> BTW, I've been thinking on writing up my "extensions" to HTML tables as
> an IETF draft. They aren't a radical shift, just the addition of some
> database-type parameters and proposed overall structure for data storage.
> Would you be interested in looking over it before it is submitted? Also,
> I am not a formal member of the IETF, so I'm a little unsure as to protocol.

Yes, I would be interested in reading your proposal. Its just possible
that the current proposal for HTML 3.0 is already good enough though.

One of the other uses of HTML 3.0's AXIS/AXES attributes is for formally
defining the database field names for cell contents. This is combined by
using the table's class attribute to indicate that the table is suitable for
post processing by software to extract data and place it into a database.

The combination of the class and axis/axes attributes seems sufficient
to allow parts of tables to be informal while other parts are can be
formally extracted and put into databases. Please let me know your
reactions to this approach.

-- Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> tel: +44 117 922 8046 fax: +44 117 922 8924
Hewlett Packard Laboratories, Filton Road, Bristol BS12 6QZ, United Kingdom