[uf-discuss] Visible Data...a Microformat requirement?

[Ben Ward]

On 26 Oct 2006, at 18:35, Colin Barrett wrote:
> On Oct 26, 2006, at 7:25 AM, Andy Mabbett wrote:
>> In message
>> <cdc278e10610260139q4b7bbf08i26486148e763b69d at mail.gmail.com>, Ciaran
>> McNulty <mail at ciaranmcnulty.com> writes
>>> @rel=bookmark
>> I've seen several people refer to such things with an opening "@"  
>> - what
>> does it mean?
> I'm not sure on the etymology, but they're referring to attributes  
> on (X)HTML tags.

It's a lazy XPath-ish syntax that a has slipped into the geek  
vocabulary (much as CSS selectors are sometimes used to quickly  
describe a structure of elements).

@ represents an attribute, so @rel=tag means @rel tag with the value  
‘tag’. The most advanced I've seen it get in general discussion is of  
the form foo[@bar=sheep], which means ‘element named foo with an  
attribute bar with value ‘sheep’.

If people object, it's probably unreasonable to ask us not to use  
such abbreviation, or preferably (for me at least, who likes to  
abbreviate like that) perhaps we should document the shorthand on the  
Wiki?

Ben