- From: fantasai <fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net>
- Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:49:03 -0700
- To: Bert Bos <bert@w3.org>
- CC: www-style@w3.org
Bert Bos wrote: > >> Given this definition of |= there is no ambiguity about whether >> [attr|=""] matches a given attribute. None. > > To a programmer, maybe: [foo|=""] matches foo="-bar", because the value > starts with an empty string immediately followed by a dash. But that's > the same for ^=, which is defined as: > > Represents an element with the att attribute whose value begins > with the prefix "val". > > So clearly [foo^=""] matches foo="bar", because "" is a prefix of every > string. And yet we decided that it was *not* clear, and indeed was not > the case. > > I don't care whether the empty string matches everything or nothing > (although I suspect that most people will not consider the empty string > to be a prefix of anything), but I think we should be consistent. In the case of [attr|=""] a literal interpretation of the wording would not match everything, nor would it match nothing. It matches a very specific subset of values. For the other selectors, ~=, *=, ^=, $=, the choice is between everything and nothing, and there we decided to be consistent with ~= and match nothing. ~fantasai
Received on Wednesday, 2 April 2008 20:49:38 UTC