Re: Draft minutes for 2008-10-15 F2F Virtual Day, Second Half

All,

I agree that it would be beneficial to define the functions using a  
namespace.

Now if the default function namespace is XForms, wouldn't that cause  
the other standard XForms function to be unreachable unless a prefix  
is used? E.g. you could write:

   index()

but you would then have to write:

   something:string-join()

which would be a shame, as functions from the XPath 2.0 functions are  
used very frequently.

Note that I am actually asking the question, I don't have an answer at  
this point.

Also, if I remember well, Mike Kay had some interesting suggestions  
about this topic of function resolution, and maybe it would be worth  
running this by him at some point.

-Erik

On Oct 16, 2008, at 4:05 AM, Mark Birbeck wrote:

>
> Hi everyone,
>
> On 10/15/08, Leigh L. Klotz, Jr. <Leigh.Klotz@xerox.com> wrote:
>> Draft minutes for  2008-10-15 F2F Virtual Day, Second Half.
>> First half of day is in IRC minutes, whose URL is included in this  
>> document.
>
> Wow...very impressive minutes, Leigh.
>
> And it sounds like it was an interesting day.
>
> One minor comment on the XPath function discussion; the evaluation
> context for XPath 2.0 includes a default function namespace, which is
> applied to functions that do not have a prefix. If we define this to
> be the XForms namespace, then by default authors can use XForms
> functions unprefixed. We should also provide a way for the author to
> override this.
>
> So, when defining the functions themselves in a specification, all
> that would need to happen is to ensure that they are defined *with*
> prefixes. It doesn't matter whether they are defined across one or ten
> specifications, as long as the prefix is always the same, they would
> be available to an XForms author for use *unprefixed*. In other words,
> we don't need to say anything about 'importing modules', etc., since
> that is all part of XPath.
>
> For example, in some spec we might say that there is a new function,  
> like this:
>
>  xf:new-func($a as xs:integer, $b as xs:boolean) as xs:integer
>
> This indicates that there is a function 'new-func', and that it is
> identified by the URI:
>
>  <http://www.w3.org/2002/xforms#new-func>
>
> That gives us a unique identifier for our function, and regardless of
> the context it is used in, we will always know what function we are
> talking about.
>
> How that function is coded up in mark-up will depend on the in-scope
> default function namespace at the time the function is called. In an
> XForms document with the 'default default', so to speak, an author can
> use the function like this:
>
>  @value="a + new-func( b )"
>
> I.e., they would not need to use the explicit prefix. Of course, an
> author could do so if they wanted to, like this:
>
>  @value="a + xf:new-func( b )"
>
> Regards,
>
> Mark
>
> -- 
> Mark Birbeck, webBackplane
>
> mark.birbeck@webBackplane.com
>
> http://webBackplane.com/mark-birbeck
>
> webBackplane is a trading name of Backplane Ltd. (company number
> 05972288, registered office: 2nd Floor, 69/85 Tabernacle Street,
> London, EC2A 4RR)
>

--
Orbeon Forms - Web Forms for the Enterprise Done the Right Way
http://www.orbeon.com/

Received on Thursday, 16 October 2008 17:41:33 UTC