Re: Clarification on EventTarget removal for DOM Events

On Fri, 31 Jan 2003 08:40:21 -0800
"Alexander J. Vincent" <ajvincent@hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
> I've noticed an issue regarding DOM Events, Levels 2 and 3, which is not 
> clear in the specifications.
> 
> For event capturing and bubbling, if the actual target (or an ancestor node 
> of the actual target) is removed or replaced, the specs do not state the 
> correct behavior of the Event object.  I'd like a clarification on whether 
> the Event object should continue to propagate, should bubble later, should 
> throw a strict warning or DOM exception, etc.
> 
> I have a bug filed at mozilla.org's Bugzilla 
> (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=191242 ) to resolve the issue 
> in Mozilla.  The bug has two testcases you can reach via link -- one in XUL 
> (you will need a Gecko-based browser such as Mozilla or K-Meleon to see it), 
> and one in XHTML.  Both testcases use ECMAScript to access the DOM.

I'm a little rusty on Events at the moment and I did not work on any of the
drafts/recommendations but does this:

REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113: 2.2. Event Capture
 "The chain of EventTargets from the top of the tree to the event's
 target is determined before the initial dispatch of the event. If
 modifications occur to the tree during event processing, event flow
 will proceed based on the initial state of the tree."

have any influence on your conclusion? My DOM implementation (written
in C) builds an array of targets beforehand and dispatches on each:

    i = tcount;           /* save state of tree in targets array */
    for (t = target->parentNode; t; t = t->parentNode) {
        targets[--i] = t;
    }
                                    /* Trigger capturers
                                     */
    evt->eventPhase = DOM_EVENT_CAPTURING_PHASE;
    for (i = 0; i < tcount && evt->_sp == 0; i++) {
        trigger(targets[i], evt, 1);
    }
                                    /* Trigger regular listeners
                                     */
    evt->eventPhase = DOM_EVENT_AT_TARGET;
    trigger(target, evt, 0);

                                    /* Trigger bubblers
                                     */
    evt->eventPhase = DOM_EVENT_BUBBLING_PHASE;
    i = tcount; 
    while (i-- && evt->bubbles && evt->_sp == 0) { 
        trigger(targets[i], evt, 0);
    }

So I believe the correct behavior would be for Events to be dispatched
on the old nodes (that were replaced). The new replacing nodes
should not receive any Events. So events are dispatched on a "snapshot"
of the tree.

Although, I'm not sure what happens if you register a handler in
a handler say during the capturing phase on a target that would be
traversed during the bubbling phase. As it is I think my implementation
would trigger such a listener. Mmm.

Mike

-- 
A  program should be written to model the concepts of the task it
performs rather than the physical world or a process because this
maximizes  the  potential  for it to be applied to tasks that are
conceptually  similar and, more important, to tasks that have not
yet been conceived.

Received on Friday, 31 January 2003 16:13:54 UTC