Re: Error in CSS1 test §7.1 (CSS2 language selector)

On Wed, 2004-06-09 at 15:20, Tantek Çelik wrote:
> On 6/9/04 8:24 AM, "Ben Winslow" <rain@bluecherry.net> wrote:

> I disagree.  The tests do not rely on the document language.  The tests make
> sure that the document language isn't incorrectly inferred/assumed.

> > I'm using a Gecko-based UA, and it appears that Gecko will match the
> > :lang pseudo-class using the languages configured for Accept-Languages
> > (pref intl.accept_languages) in the absence of a document-specified
> > language.  This seems like an acceptable behavior,
> 
> That is not acceptable behavior and is a bug.
> 
> Accept-Language is purely a client preference and has nothing to do with the
> document.
> 
> There are only two ways I know of offhand that the document language can be
> inferred.
> 
> 1. HTTP Header *response* Content-Language field
>     (or the <meta> http-equiv equivalent)
> 2. 'lang' attribute on an element, or if absent, the nearest ancestor with a
> 'lang' attribute, and if none, then inferred from 1.

While preparing a bug report for Mozilla, I noticed the last bullet in
the HTML 4.0 spec (§8.1.2 [1]) which I had previously overlooked.  The
section defines the inheritance hierarchy for language information as
follows:

An element inherits language code information according to the following
order of precedence (highest to lowest):

      * The lang attribute set for the element itself.
      * The closest parent element that has the lang attribute set
        (i.e., the lang attribute is inherited).
      * The HTTP "Content-Language" header (which may be configured in a
        server). For example: 
        Content-Language: en-cockney
      * User agent default values and user preferences.

Based on this, I am reverting to my original standpoint that Gecko's
behavior is correct and the test suite is in error.

Opinions?

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/dirlang.html#h-8.1.2

-- 
Ben Winslow <rain@bluecherry.net>