[Bug 27107] [SER 3.1] Streamability of JSON Serialization method

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=27107

--- Comment #2 from C. M. Sperberg-McQueen <cmsmcq@blackmesatech.com> ---
The joint meeting today considered this report.  We considered several
alternatives including 


  - raising an error when the sequence to be serialized (hereafter $s) has
count($s) > 1
  - serializing $s[1] when count($s) > 1
  - raising a recoverable error when count($s) > 1 (with the expectation that
serializing $s[1] would be the prescribed recovery path)
  - raising an error when count($s) > 1 and $s[1] is non-atomic, but otherwise
behaving as described in the status quo document
  - adding a serialization parameter to control behavior
  - suggesting that the perceived conflict with streamability be handled in
specs which define streamability (i.e. not in the serialization spec)

There was strong preference, though not unanimity, in favor of the first of
these:  A sequence of length greater than one in the data model instance is a
serialization error.

Some points may be worth noting in passing:

  - Some WG members were motivated not by a concern for streamability but by an
aversion to serializing sequences in the same way as arrays, which they took to
be a violation of the principle of round-trippability.  (Others argued that
sequences are not currently round-trippable in any case, no matter how this bug
is resolved.  Neither party seemed to make any headway with the other.)

  - The conformance section of the serialization spec appears to make it
possible for host languages to specify that a given serialization error is
recoverable, even if the serialization spec does not so describe it, and
similarly to specify that an error described as recoverable in the
serialization spec must be raised, and not recovered from, in implementations
of the host language.  (So that the use of the term 'recoverable' in the
serialization spec appears to have essentially advisory character.)

The net effect is to endorse the proposal in the final paragraph of the problem
description, "of disallowing a sequence of length >1".

Michael Kay, as the originator of the bug report, will you please review this
resolution and signal your assent to it, or dissent from it, in the usual way
by closing or reopening this issue?   Thank you.  If nothing happens before the
end of the last call period, the WGs will assume assent.

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Received on Tuesday, 28 October 2014 00:25:05 UTC