Agenda Topic / Issue: Clarify the meaning of "ignore" with respect to attributes that have no legal value

One issue that has come up recently is that we use inconsistent language 
in the RDFa Syntax Recommendation when discussing illegal values in 
attributes (thanks Philip!). 

Basically, in the current Recommendation we talk about attributes being 
ignored when the value(s) are illegal.  I believe that when we say this 
(and we say it in a couple of different ways), we ALWAYS mean:

"When an attribute has no legal values, a conforming RDFa Processor MUST 
act as if the attribute were not present at all.  The processor MUST NOT 
act as if the attribute were present, but with the empty string as its 
value."

So, for example,

<a rel="blah:blah" href="file.html">something</a>

Would never generate triple, because the prefix "blah" is not defined, 
so the system MUST act as if there was no @rel at all.

<span property="blah:blah" datatype="blah:blah">some content</span>

Would also generate no triples, since there would effectively be no 
@property AND no @datatype attributes.

I don't think there is any disagreement on this point, but it is 
important and perhaps we should get a formal resolution on the books and 
a note in the errata document just so we eliminate this one area of 
potential confusion.

Ben, please put this on the agenda for Thursday.

-- 
Shane P. McCarron                          Phone: +1 763 786-8160 x120
Managing Director                            Fax: +1 763 786-8180
ApTest Minnesota                            Inet: shane@aptest.com

Received on Tuesday, 8 September 2009 20:29:42 UTC