Re: Error definition

On Sat, 5 Feb 2022 at 15:44, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen
<cmsmcq@blackmesatech.com> wrote:


> I'm not now able to make a good suggestion for the best way to talk
> about parsing failures that are not conformance failures, but I think it
> would be good to try to find one.

> Maybe we just need to say that any reference to 'error' in connection
> with input strings which are not sentences w.r.t. the input grammar
> denotes a failure of the input to match the grammar but not repeat not a
> failure of the grammar or the processor to conform to this spec.

(for me), far too many words?

 For
> the reasons Norm and I have already laid out, that will make some of us
> uneasy.  But all we can do is try to define useful terms and use them in
> ways consistent with the definitions.

A user view.
1.input.ixml
2.input.txt
(hoped for)
3. output.xml

Assumption: The processor is not buggy.

I process 1 and 2.
  Options:
I get 3. No messages. We're all happy. Success.
I get no 3. Something has gone wrong (my defn, an error has occurred).
  I look to the processor to tell me where that error is?
<ul>
 <li> 1 not valid to ixml spec</li>
 <li> (some part of )2 not a sentence in grammar of 1</li>
  <li> ???</li>
</ul>

My view, the 'transformation' has failed, with an error reported.
What it is, where to look for it, I turn to the error / warnings /
output of the processor.
Basically I'm uninterested in nuances. It worked | it failed to produce 3

AFAICT - it's an error that needs some debugging.  I'm not writing
test cases to
debug the processor, I want output and I trust(ed?) this processor to do that.

My (simple?) two penneth.

regards



-- 
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
Docbook FAQ.

Received on Saturday, 5 February 2022 16:03:26 UTC