XML Unleashed

Inside XPointer

XPointer is the component of the XLink technology that's used to address parts of XML documents. More specifically, XPointer allows you to walk the tree of nodes that make up an XML document to address a specific node or nodes. XPointer defines a syntax that is used to describe fragment identifiers, which in turn are used to specify parts of documents. XPointer provides much finer-grained control over the part of an XML document that can be addressed, which is in contrast to the general approach employed by HTML.

In HTML, you can address a general spot within a document by using the anchor tag and the name element. XPointer is much more specific in its addressing, allowing you to do things such as address an element with a given ...