[OK?] Bug: "A value disjunction that encounters a type error on only one branch will return the result of evaluating the other branch."

On Tue, Aug 02, 2005 at 11:27:24AM -0400, Tim Berners-Lee wrote:
> 
> The current last call draft states,
> 
> "A value disjunction that encounters a type error on only one branch  
> will return the result of evaluating the other branch."
> 
> This seems to be a bug: inconsistent with the logic one would expect.
>  It is inconsistent with the general rule that the disjunction of  
> false with x is x for all x. The disjunction of false with a type  
> error is therefore a type error.  If not, the type error is masked.
> 
> Example in english:  An alarm should fire if either ?smokeDetected or  
> the ?temperature is above 40.  Suppose the ?smokeDetected is false  
> and the temperature is (because of a bug) bound to something which  
> can't be compared to 40 without a type error.  The result should be  
> that the alarm is a type error.  Instead, with the wording above, the  
> alarm is suppressed.

I tried making this concrete, but found it supporting the spec's
current wording.

DATA:

@prefix : <asdf> .
:detector :temp \"314\"^^:degreesK ;
          :smokeDetects 1 .

*note* degreesK is not known by this SPARQL engine and therefor is not
known to be numeric and therefor throws a type error at the > operator.

QUERY:

PREFIX : <asdf> 
SELECT ?smokeDetected ?temperature
 WHERE { :detector :smokeDetects ?smokeDetected .
       :detector :temp ?temperature .
       FILTER (?temperature > 40 || ?smokeDetected) }

RESULTS:
  under current semantics:
[] fire:eek [] .

  if the type error passes through the disjunction there are no results.

Does this clarify the effect of || masking type errors?
Is this effect now acceptable?
Would you like clarifying wording in the spec?

> Yosi Scharf found also that this rule for union means that de  
> Morgan's laws don't hold properly, making the  compilation and  
> optimization of queries more difficult or impossible.
> 
> Tim Berners-Lee
> MIT/CSAIL/DIG

-- 
-eric

office: +81.466.49.1170 W3C, Keio Research Institute at SFC,
                        Shonan Fujisawa Campus, Keio University,
                        5322 Endo, Fujisawa, Kanagawa 252-8520
                        JAPAN
        +1.617.258.5741 NE43-344, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02144 USA
cell:   +81.90.6533.3882

(eric@w3.org)
Feel free to forward this message to any list for any purpose other than
email address distribution.