XPointer

At the present time (late 2002), XPointer is divided among four specifications: a "framework" which forms the basis for indentifying XML fragments (http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr-framework/), a positional element addressing scheme (http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr-element/), a scheme for namespaces (http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr-xmlns/, and a scheme for XPath-based addressing (http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr-xpointer/).

The XPointer language is designed to address structural aspects of XML, including text content and other information objects created as a result of parsing the document. Thus, it could be used to point to a section of a document highlighted by a user through a mouse drag action.

===== Positional Element Addressing =======

The element() scheme introduces positional addressing of child elements. This is similar to a simple XPath address, but subsequent steps can only be numbers representing the position of a descendant relative to its branch on the tree.

For instance, given the following fragment

<foobar id="foo"><bar/><baz><bom/></baz></foobar>

the XPointer to bom would be

element(foo/2/1)