[Bug 1498] Feature request: namespace for errors, elaborated error code descriptions

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=1498





------- Additional Comments From mike@saxonica.com  2005-06-15 07:28 -------
Thanks for the comment. The conventions for describing error codes in XSLT are
intended to be consistent with those for XPath, and they are intended to be in
the same namespace. I shall probably respond to your comment by adding a pointer
from the XSLT specification to the XPath specification.

Personally, I must admit to some ambivalence on this. Although we have
structured the error codes as 8-character codes with fixed-size subfields in the
good old COBOL/punched-card tradition, I would hate to see anyone examining an
error code to see whether columns 3-4 contain "DE". In fact, we haven't defined
any interfaces that communicate error codes, so it's a little bit difficult to
see where we should describe their semantics (if indeed they have any
semantics). I have tended more to the view that the code is simply an anchor
that designers of APIs can use to refer to an error condition if they choose to
do so, and responsibility for defining properties of errors and interfaces for
getting such properties belongs with the API specification. However, the XPath
and XQuery specifications lean more towards setting guidelines and expectations
for the API designers to follow.

Received on Wednesday, 15 June 2005 07:28:44 UTC