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8.3. URI of a Work

The URI for the Work as a whole

The URI for the WORK is the baseline for building the URI for the EXPRESSION, which is the baseline for the URI of the MANIFESTATION. All these URIs use the http:// prefix, but the names never refer to physical storage of the documents.

The URI for the WORK consists of the following pieces:

• The base URL of a naming authority with URI-resolving capabilities
• A detail fragment organizing in a hierarchical fashion the additional data:
• Country (a two-letter code according to ISO 3166-1 alpha-2)
• Type of document
• Date (expressed in YYYY-MM-DD format or YYYY if the year is enough for identification purposes)
• Number (when appropriate, otherwise nn

All components are separated by forward slashes ("/") so as to exploit relative URIs in references.

• http://www.authority.org/dz/debaterecord/2004-12-21
  Algerian parliamentary debate record, 21st December 2004.
  
  
• http://www.authority.org/sl/act/2004-02-13/2
  Sierra Leone enacted Legislation. Act number 2 of 2004.
  
  
• http://www.authority.org/ng/bill/2003-05-14/19
  Namibia Bill number 19 of 2003
  
  
• http://www.authority.org/mg/act/2003-03-12/3
  Madagascar. Act 3 from 2003

The URI for WorkComponents

Although components are really belonging to each expression only, it so happens that the legislator quite often makes work-level references to components, which thus need to have a work-level URIs as well. Not only, but it may happen (and it has happened in the past several times) that the component (e.g., an attachment) may change name, or position, or even hierarchical placement, time after time.

For instance, we could have that an original act refers to table A of schedule 1, and after a little time schedule 1 is completely abrogated, and thus table A becomes (implicitly) an attachment of the main document. As such, it is important that all references to table A of schedule 1 are considered as references to table A of the main document after that event.

This brings about the necessity to have URIs for Work Components. These are to be used when referring in a work-level fashion to components that have official names and positions, but may change in name and position with time.

One problem is that a work-level component URI has no expression-level part, and yet the component part is AFTER the expression level part. Therefore, it is necessary to make sure that a work-level URI fragment is never mistaken for an expression-level or a component-level URI fragment.

But since:

1. The number part of the work-level URI (/nn/) is required even in unnumbered documents ("/nn/"  for not numbered).
2. The expression fragment, if present, always has at least the language and the "@" character, and the @ character can only be used for expression fragments.

The absence of a part containing the "@" character indicates a work-level component reference after the 4th component (the number).

• /kn/act/2007-01-01/1/schedule1

Kenya, schedule 1 of act 1 from 2007 (WorkComponent)

Next: 8.4. URI of an Expression Previous: 8.2. Resolving Akoma Ntoso URIs