[Bug 5278] [XSLT 2.0] Can xsl:message cause an error?

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=5278

           Summary: [XSLT 2.0] Can xsl:message cause an error?
           Product: XPath / XQuery / XSLFO / XSLT
           Version: Recommendation
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Windows XP
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: XSLT 2.0
        AssignedTo: mike@saxonica.com
        ReportedBy: mike@saxonica.com
         QAContact: public-qt-comments@w3.org


xsl:message is generally used for diagnostics, and it would seem therefore
undesirable that the instruction should ever cause a dynamic error (assuming
terminate="no").

In particular, the specification says "The xsl:message  instruction causes the
creation of a new document, which is typically serialized and output to an
implementation-defined destination." It doesn't say what happens if the
creation of the new document or the serialization of that document fail.

Specifically, what happens if the user does:

<xsl:message select="@*"/>

Saxon 9.0, unlike previous releases, is failing with error XTDE0420 which
occurs when you try to create (or serialize) a document node that has attribute
nodes as its children.

We currently say nothing. We could say that xsl:message MUST NOT or SHOULD NOT
fail with a dynamic error, and use words that encourage the implementation to
use an implementation-dependent fallback representation is such situations.

Received on Thursday, 22 November 2007 08:40:01 UTC