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mbtaylor merged 2 commits into from
Mar 6, 2026
Merged

Update STREAM/href text and examples #82

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5c58a8d
Update STREAM/href text and examples
mbtaylor Mar 5, 2026
3c8272b
Remove absolute/relative language from URI parsing expectations
mbtaylor Mar 6, 2026
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30 changes: 16 additions & 14 deletions VOTable.tex
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -1876,6 +1876,7 @@ \subsection{Data Encoding}
binary data is encoded as legal XML content.

\subsection{Remote Data}
\label{sec:stream}

If the encoding of the data produces text, or if the serialization
is naturally text-based, then it can be directly embedded into the
Expand All @@ -1893,28 +1894,27 @@ \subsection{Remote Data}

However, if the data stream is very large, it may be preferable to keep the data
separate from the metadata. The \attr{href} attribute of
the {\elem{STREAM}} element, if present, provides the location of the data
in a URL-type syntax, for example:
the {\elem{STREAM}} element, if present, provides a URI
giving the location of the data, for example:

\begin{plain}
\elemdef{STREAM}{ \attrval{href}{ftp://server.com/mydata.dat}\slash}
\elemdef{STREAM}{ \attrval{href}{http://server.com/mydata.dat}\slash}

\par\elemdef{STREAM}{ \attrval{href}{ftp://server.com/mydata.dat}
\attrval{expires}{2004-02-29T23:59:59}\slash}
\par\elemdef{STREAM}{ \attrval{href}{https://server.com/mydata.dat}
\attrval{expires}{2004-02-29T23:59:59}\slash}

\par\elemdef{STREAM}{ \attrval{href}{httpg://server.com/mydata.dat}
\attrval{actuate}{onLoad}\slash}
\par\elemdef{STREAM}{ \attrval{href}{https://server.com/mydata.dat}
\attrval{actuate}{onLoad}\slash}

\par\elemdef{STREAM}{ \attrval{href}{file:///usr/home/me/mydata.dat}\slash}
\end{plain}


The examples are the well-known anonymous FTP and HTTP protocols.
\literalvalue{httpg} is an example of a Grid-based access to data through HTTPG;
finally, \literalvalue{file} is a reference to a local file.
VOTable parsers are not required to understand arbitrary protocols,
but are required to understand the three common protocols
\literalvalue{file:}, \literalvalue{http:} and \literalvalue{ftp:}.
Any dereferenceable URI may be used for the \attr{href} attribute,
but access to remote streams may be limited
by capabilities of the parser implementation.
Parsers SHOULD be able to read from URIs
using common schemes such as
\literalvalue{http}, \literalvalue{https} and \literalvalue{file}.

There are further attributes of the {\elem{STREAM}}
element that may be useful. The {\attr{expires}}
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -2424,6 +2424,8 @@ \subsection{Differences Between Versions 1.5 and 1.6}
{\tt application/x-votable+xml} media type (\Aref{sec:mime}).
\item Advice about character encoding is modernised: use UTF-8
without a {\tt charset} media type parameter (\Aref{sec:mime}).
\item Update examples and expectations about \elem{STREAM} \attr{href}
URI schemes (\Aref{sec:stream}).
\item Minor editorial corrections.
\end{itemize}

Expand Down