Eve Maler released two versions of FIXptr (1 2), a proposed simplification of XPointer.

Initially mentioned as part of a minority opinion, it wasn't clear if FIXptr could be published. This post provides the FIXptr drafts behind that minority opinion:

"It turns out that what we needed to was to get the Linking WG's permission, which was done last week (thanks to the WG for taking this under consideration and agreeing). I have attached the original and revised versions of the proposal here to serve the purpose of putting the proposal into a public archive. Note that the WG is planning to post a "majority opinion" outlining reasons for rejecting the proposal; I'm not sure exactly when that will happen."

FIXptr defines a subset of XPointer functionality:

"Because fragment identifier processing is such a basic part of XML on the Web and needs to be efficiently supportable on a wide range of devices and applications, this proposal suggests a small subset of XPointer functionality, called FIXptr, for this purpose."

FIXptr includes an optional ID, child sequences, and an optional "terminal character offset", and uses the XML Infoset rather than the XPath data model as a foundation. The two versions differ slightly: "The original version of the proposal (10 April) is what the WG voted on, and the revised version (25 April) incorporated a syntax for ranges based on comments received, in order to back up the minority opinion text. "

Two appendices, the Rationale and the Scenarios for pointing into XML, are longer than the actual grammar.

Related stories:

• Is XPointer too big?
• New Last Call for XPointer
• XLink and XPointer prepare to move forward