Re: text on XML syntax extensibility (ACTION-470)

It is generally good, but there are problems:

1. XML schema validators cannot determine if a document is a valid RIF or not.
2. I think such a statement should be stated completely imperatively and
   without explanations such as "Given that ...".
   A paragraph following such a normative statement can optionally explain the
   reasons.


	--michael  

On Mon, 19 May 2008 18:19:52 -0400
Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org> wrote:

> 
> 
> Here's some text for BLD which says what I think we need to say about
> syntactic conformance for extensibility.   
> 
>     Systems which accept RIF input in the Basic Logic Dialect are
>     required to check whether the input conforms to the grammar of BLD
>     and (unless overriden by the user) to reject input documents which
>     fail the check.  This check can be done by an XML Schema validating
>     parser or by other software.  This check is required as part of the
>     RIF approach to multiple dialects, extensions, and fallback
>     translations.  If, instead of rejecting the document, a BLD system
>     "repaired" it (such as by ignoring the part it did not recognize),
>     it could silently produce incorrect results if it were (quite
>     reasonably) given a RIF document which used some other dialect or
>     some extension.  Given the undesirability of silent failures under
>     normal use, systems which accept BLD as input MUST reject any RIF
>     document which is not syntactically valid BLD.
> 
>     The rejection message SHOULD inform the user that the input does not
>     conform to the syntax of the Basic Logic Dialect and that it may be
>     a valid RIF document in some other dialect or using some extension.
>     The system MAY allow the user to override the rejection and proceed
>     with some ad hoc repair process, with clear warnings about the
>     possibility of incorrect results.  The system MAY inform the user
>     that it was unable to perform any fallback translation to BLD, but
>     this messaging is not required in this version of BLD.
> 
>     EDITOR'S NOTE: The preceding text is expected to change once the
>     fallback translation system is specified.  At that point, a new
>     requirement is expected to be put into place, that systems SHOULD
>     implement the fallback translation system, and that if they do not,
>     they MUST inform users that they do not implement this RIF feature.
> 
> Does that make sense?     This completes ACTION-470 (give or take
> whatever discussion we need to have on this).
> 
>     -- Sandro
> 
> 
> 
> 
>

Received on Monday, 26 May 2008 08:20:41 UTC