[Bug 22839] New: [XP3.1] Ordering on binary types

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=22839

            Bug ID: 22839
           Summary: [XP3.1] Ordering on binary types
    Classification: Unclassified
           Product: XPath / XQuery / XSLT
           Version: Working drafts
          Hardware: PC
                OS: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: XPath 3.1
          Assignee: jonathan.robie@gmail.com
          Reporter: mike@saxonica.com
        QA Contact: public-qt-comments@w3.org

The types xs:hexBinary and xs:base64Binary are currently unordered (that is,
the operators le/ge/lt/gt are not defined). It is clearly possible to define an
ordering for these types.

Making the types ordered is desirable for three reasons:

(a) orthogonality: it's an arbitrary restriction and we shouldn't have
arbitrary restrictions.

(b) a new function collation-key() is being introduced under the maps proposal.
At present this only supports equality matching, but there are obvious use
cases for ordered collation keys. Collation keys are often binary (e.g. in the
UCA algorithm for generating collation keys; this will generate a requirement
for ordering of binary values

(c) an EXPath initiative is currently defining a library of functions for
handling binary data. It is possible for such a community initiative to define
new functions, but not to define new operators. The existence of such a
function library will make use of the binary data types more popular, and
generate a demand for doing magnitude comparisons.

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Received on Tuesday, 30 July 2013 19:33:28 UTC