[Bug 11347] Submitting a partially downloaded form

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=11347

--- Comment #5 from Aryeh Gregor <Simetrical+w3cbug@gmail.com> 2011-01-02 00:34:11 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #4)
> But it's not clear from this text how to determine whether 'the form has no
> submit
> button'.  Does it mean if the download made by the browser so far does
> not include any <input type="submit">, even if the download so far is obviously
> a partial download?  If so, that needs to be stated IMHO.

The HTML5 standard is defined in terms of the DOM.  The section on parsing
defines how to incrementally proceed from a stream of input bytes to a DOM,
adding each node one by one.  If a UA chooses to make the document visible and
interactive to the user before the entire document is loaded, the spec applies
as-is to the DOM as it currently exists.  If the the form has no submit button
in the DOM that has so far been constructed, the form has no submit button
(even if it might get one later).

This is all sort of fundamental to the idea of progressive rendering.  I don't
know if it's stated clearly anywhere, but I'm pretty sure it's clear if you
read the right parts of the spec.  When the document is only partially loaded,
it's treated mostly the same as if the rest of the document just didn't exist. 
Since, after all, it hasn't been parsed yet, or maybe not even received.

> An equally plausible reading of the text is that to determine whether 'the form
> has no submit button' then the browser needs to download the <form> element at
> least.

This is not the correct reading.

> I apologize if there is some general principle elsewhere in the spec that says
> 'for a partially downloaded page, the semantics are as if you close
> all the open elements and take that as the full HTML document', but I didn't
> see
> anything like that.

This is basically the case, although I don't know offhand where specifically
this is stated or implied.

-- 
Configure bugmail: http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/userprefs.cgi?tab=email
------- You are receiving this mail because: -------
You are the QA contact for the bug.

Received on Sunday, 2 January 2011 00:34:14 UTC