[Bug 4286] Implementation-defined persistence

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=4286

           Summary: Implementation-defined persistence
           Product: XPath / XQuery / XSLT
           Version: Working drafts
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Windows XP
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: Update Facility
        AssignedTo: andrew.eisenberg@us.ibm.com
        ReportedBy: jonathan.robie@datadirect.com
         QAContact: public-qt-comments@w3.org


Currently, persistence is completely undefined in the XQuery Update Facility.

3.2.2 applyUpdates says:

> Propagation of XDM changes to an underlying physical representation is beyond 
> the scope of this specification. For example, the effect on physical storage 
> of deleting a node that has no parent is beyond the scope of this 
> specification.

I think that an implementation should document whether the resources a user
cares about, such as files or database data, are actually changed. For
instance, most users probably want to know whether an implementation actually
deletes a node in an XML file or a row of a relational database as a result of
a delete expression. Thus, the mapping of updates from the XDM instance to
software systems should probably be implementation-defined.

However, it is also true that there are some error conditions that can not be
completely documented. We need to find a reasonable way to allow for this.

Received on Monday, 29 January 2007 21:59:52 UTC