Re: [Serial] I18N WG last call comments [4] (qt-2004Feb0362-01)

Martin, François.

     In [1] Martin submitted the following comment on the Last Call 
Working Draft of XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization on behalf of the 
I18N working group:

<<
[4] This only defines serialization into bytes. In some contexts
   (e.g. Databases, in-program,...), serialization into a stream
   of characters is also important. The spec should specify how
   this is done.
>>

     In [2], I announced the following decision on behalf of the XSL and 
XML Query Working Groups:

<<
     The XSL and XQuery Working Groups discussed the comment.  The working 

groups noted that there is an analogy in parsing XML documents.  XML 1.0 
and XML 1.1 parsed entities are defined as sequences of character code 
points, each in some encoding.  Though it is common practice to parse XML 
documents that have already been decoded into a sequence of characters, 
the XML 1.0 and XML 1.1 Recommendations do not describe the actions of an 
XML processor in those terms.

     Based on this analogy, the working groups decided that it was not 
appropriate for Serialization to specify normatively how to serialize into 

a stream of characters.  The working groups did decide to add a note to 
Section 3 of Serialization indicating that a processor could provide an 
option that would permit the fourth phase of serialization (Encoding) to 
be skipped.
>>

     In [3], François raised the following objection on behalf of I18N:

<<
We are not really satisfied with this resolution and would like to 
request further clarification.  In particular, conformance when one is 
actually serializing to characters instead of bytes is not clear at all 
to us.  Allowing this but not normatively is very strange, one is left 
to wonder what would be the conformance status of an implementation that 
*only* serializes to characters (because that's all that is required in 
a given context).
>>

     The XSL and XML Query Working Groups discussed this comment again, 
and are unsure what change would resolve this issue.  There does not 
appear to be any interoperability problem with not requiring 
implementations to support skipping the encoding phase.  In addition, XSLT 
1.0 did not require support for skipping the encoding phase of 
serialization, and such support has been raised as a requirement for XSLT 
2.0.  Would it be sufficient to remove the note in the Serialization 
specification that mentions that processors may implement an option that 
allows serialization to characters rather than serialization to bytes?

Thanks,

Henry
[1] 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-qt-comments/2004Feb/0362.html
[2] 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-qt-comments/2004Apr/0065.html
[3] 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-qt-comments/2004Jun/0109.html
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Henry Zongaro      Xalan development
IBM SWS Toronto Lab   T/L 969-6044;  Phone +1 905 413-6044
mailto:zongaro@ca.ibm.com

Received on Tuesday, 31 August 2004 22:55:59 UTC