[Bug 3842] [XQuery] 4.14 Variable Declaration: circularity

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=3842

           Summary: [XQuery] 4.14 Variable Declaration: circularity
           Product: XPath / XQuery / XSLT
           Version: Candidate Recommendation
          Platform: All
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: XQuery
        AssignedTo: chamberl@almaden.ibm.com
        ReportedBy: jmdyck@ibiblio.org
         QAContact: public-qt-comments@w3.org


4.14 Variable Declaration
"If an initializing expression cannot be evaluated because of a circularity
(for example, it depends on a function that in turn depends on the value of the
variable that is being initialized), a static error is raised [err:XQST0054]."

Why is there no definition for "circularity"? Here are some guesses:

-- You think that the meaning is clear enough, and everyone who reads the
quoted sentence will know exactly what you mean. (In which case, I disagree.)

-- You concede that the meaning is not clear from the above sentence, and that
people/implementations might disagree on what constitutes "circularity", but
that's okay: you don't wish to constrain implementations to use a particular
definition. (In which case, I think you should explicitly say that the meaning
of "circularity" is implementation-dependent (or -defined).)

-- You concede that the meaning is not clear from the above sentence, and that
people/implementations might disagree on what constitutes "circularity", and
that's not okay: you have a particular meaning in mind that you would like
everyone to use, but you don't know how to express it.


This issue has been raised before, most recently here (I think):
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-qt-comments/2004Aug/0026.html
This was supposedly given an official response here:
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-qt-comments/2004Aug/0100.html
But then this:
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-qt-comments/2004Aug/0112.html
appears to reopen the issue, with no subsequent resolution that I can find.

Received on Tuesday, 17 October 2006 07:41:40 UTC