Subject: link element alternate and self

From: Sylvain Hellegouarch <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 11:47:13 +0100

Hi all,

 From RFC4287:
The value "alternate" signifies that the IRI in the value of the href 
attribute identifies an alternate version of the resource described by 
the containing element.
The value "self" signifies that the IRI in the value of the href 
attribute identifies a resource equivalent to the containing element.

Now I wonder say I have a feed. Each entry has a link element which 
should indicate the URI of the resource. That resource being a feed 
itself not an entry.

In that case should I use self or alternate? Is it an equivalent 
resource or an alternate version of it? The term "equivalent" being 
fairly unclear in this context IMO. I assume instead of "alternate 
version" it should have been "alternate representation" right?

What's the best practices?

Thanks,
- Sylvain

---

From: "A. Pagaltzis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 15:53:15 +0200

* Sylvain Hellegouarch <[email-masked]> [2006-08-13 13:00]:
> In that case should I use self or alternate?

`alternate`.

The purpose of `self` is to embed the URI of the feed inside the
feed, so that an aggregator knows what URI to subscribe to, even
if all it has to go by is the feed document, but not a URI.
That’s all it’s for.

> The term "equivalent" being fairly unclear in this context IMO.

Yes, the wording in the RFC is unfortunate.

Regards,
-- 
Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://plasmasturm.org/>