Re: Nodes outside of documents

"Don Park" <donpark@quake.net> writes:

> Following restrictions are inplace for Level 1 of the DOM API:
> 
> 1. DocumentFragment exists within the context of the Document which created
> it.
> 
> 2. ownerDocument attribute never changes.
> 
> 3. DocumentFragment can not be used as a template because nodes will be
> 'moved' to the destination.  Think of it as a 'laundry line' or a
> 'clipboard' for now.
> 
> 4. Level 1 does not allow any movement of nodes between documents as well as
> implementations.
> 
> Is this clear enough?

Totally clear; what it means is that DOM Level 1 in its present form is
totally useless for anything but client-side scripting.  It has been made
abundantly clear that client-side scripting is its only purpose, but it's
very unfortunate nonetheless.

Since I'm implementing a document processor, not an ECMAscript interpretor,
the present DOM is of little interest to me at this point.  What I'm going
to do is continue implementing a version of the DOM API with all the
interfaces but without the semantic restrictions, and hope that they get
lifted in Level 2.

In the mean time, there's no hope of getting a useable DOM library from a
third party in the near future (not that I needed one), of interoperating
with anyone else's DOM implementation, or of using a DOM implementation as a
portability vehicle.  Oh, well.

-- 
 Stephen R. Savitzky   Chief Software Scientist, Ricoh Silicon Valley, Inc., 
<steve@rsv.ricoh.com>                            California Research Center
 voice: 650.496.5710   fax: 650.854.8740    URL: http://rsv.ricoh.com/~steve/
  home: <steve@starport.com> URL: http://www.starport.com/people/steve/

Received on Tuesday, 11 August 1998 18:34:01 UTC