[Bug 1225] description of / and // (editorial)

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=1225





------- Additional Comments From davidc@nag.co.uk  2005-04-07 16:36 -------
My (first) suggestion was to amend the expansion of a leading / so that it
explitly had 2 different expansions, without a trailing / in the case that there
is no following step. Currently the text highlights the fact that the expansions
are the same, but then if a trailing / is not needed in the expansion of / this
reader at least is left asking why one is needed in the expansion of //.

The alternative is to not put a trailing / on either and just use the statement
that it is a complete step to disallow a following predicate.  This is how Xpath
1 dissallowed the syntax .[expr] . (in Xpath1) abreviates a complete step.

So far I think all the discussion is editorial: how best to describe the current 
behaviour

  And I also think that /[expr] should be allowed as expression. 

That of course would be a substantive change. I wouldn't disagree with it. As I
note above, XPath2 has already made a similar change allowing .[expr] which was
previously disallowed.

allowing /[expr] but not allowing //[expr] would of course be a convincing
argument to explain why the expansion of / does not end with a / but the
expansion of // does.

David

Received on Thursday, 7 April 2005 16:37:00 UTC