[x3d-public] x3d-public Digest, Vol 152, Issue 51

[Andreas Plesch]

> Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2021 19:23:52 -0500
> From: "vmarchetti at kshell.com" <vmarchetti at kshell.com>
> To: X3D-Public <x3d-public at web3d.org>
> Subject: Re: [x3d-public] xml:lang language identification
>
> > On Nov 16, 2021, at 6:00 PM, Brutzman, Donald (Don) (CIV) <brutzman at nps.edu> wrote:
> >
> > XML allows identification of language via the reserved xml:lang attribute on any attribute.
> >
> > XML Recommendation, fifth edition, W3C, section2.12 Language Identification
> > https://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-lang-tag <https://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-lang-tag>
> >
> > and
> >
> > W3C XML Schema Definition Language (XSD) 1.1 Part 2: Datatypes, W3C Recommendation 5 April 2012 section 3.4.3 language
> > https://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema11-2/#language <https://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema11-2/#language>
>
> These excerpts from the XML documents assert that the xml:lang attribute is not as granular as applying to individual attributes, but applies at
> the XML element level, and so to all the attributes and subelements , with some clear rules for overriding the xml:lang attribute in sub-elements.
>
> With that in mind, I think that the function of the xml:lang attribute can, in the X3D abstract specification, be performed by a MetadataString node which can be applied to any X3D node, including
> other Metadata nodes. The advantage of this approach would be that the language attribution can be readily transferred between different encodings of the same X3D content.

Encoding independence and limiting changes in the spec. to one node
seem important. VRML encoding may be out of scope but xml, json, and
programming language encodings seem possible.

For an additional "lang" (encoded as xml:lang) field for Metadata or
MetadataString the abstract spec. would probably also need to specify
intended consumption by browsers, from "free to ignore" to "provide
translation" when an out string in one language is routed to an in
field in another language.

Andreas

-- 
Andreas Plesch
Waltham, MA 02453