XPointer

XPointer allows links to point to specific parts of an XML document instead of the whole XML document. For instance:
xlink:href="http://example.com/cars.xml#xpointer(id('BMW'))"

An XPointer expression referencing the element whose id attribute is 'BMW'.

Because the above example references the 'id' attribute, it can be rewritten as:
xlink:href="http://example.com/cars.xml#BMW"

Shorthand form of the same XPointer reference.

XPointer recognizes XPath.

<foobar id="foo">
  <bar/>
  <baz>
    <bom a="1"/>
  </baz>
  <bom a="2"/>
</foobar>
Applied to the XML source above, the following XPointer expressions resolve as shown:
xpointer(id("foo")) => foobar
xpointer(/foobar/1) => bar
xpointer(//bom) => bom (a=1), bom (a=2)
element(/1/2/1) => bom (a=1) — /1 descends into the first element (foobar), /2 descends into the second child element (baz), /1 selects the first child element (bom).

(Courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPointer)