This specification defines the XML Pointer Language (XPointer) Framework, an extensible system for XML addressing that underlies additional XPointer scheme specifications. The framework is intended to be used as a basis for fragment identifiers for any resource whose Internet media type is one of text/xml, application/xml, text/xml-external-parsed-entity, or application/xml-external-parsed-entity. Other XML-based media types are also encouraged to use this framework in defining their own fragment identifier languages.