[Bug 6027] New: Extensions and Conformance

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=6027

           Summary: Extensions and Conformance
           Product: XPath / XQuery / XSLT
           Version: Recommendation
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Windows NT
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: XQuery
        AssignedTo: chamberl@almaden.ibm.com
        ReportedBy: mike@saxonica.com
         QAContact: public-qt-comments@w3.org


A number of (alleged) XQuery implementations ship with private extensions to
the XQuery grammar, to do things such as try/catch or grouping.

The specification is remarkably silent on the subject of whether such
implementations are conformant to the XQuery 1.0 specification or not. There
appears to be no specific requirement to detect and report all errors (clearly,
using such an extension is a static error according to the spec, but there
seems to be no obligation to report it).

The only thing the conformance section seems to say is the wonderfully woolly
"Minimal Conformance to this specification MUST include ... Support for
everything specified in this document (except....)".

As an implementor, I think the spec should provide guidance on whether
syntactic extensions are allowed or not. 

My own view is that W3C specs should aim for a high level of interoperability,
but it might be that the database user community has lower expectations than
this.


-- 
Configure bugmail: http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/userprefs.cgi?tab=email
------- You are receiving this mail because: -------
You are the QA contact for the bug.

Received on Thursday, 4 September 2008 21:17:23 UTC