Re: XProc Minutes: 8 Apr 2010

----- Original Message Follows -----
From: Liam R E Quin <liam@w3.org>
> here's a little background to the "default" question, in
> case it's of use. I haven't been involved in discussions,
> so I'm not trying to steer the WG in a particular
> direction, so much as to say, "this is the question the
> W3C staff was trying to ask"...
> 
> The original mandate (when I wrote the charter) was much
> smaller than Murray's list. Our question could be
> rephrased as,
>     "In the absence of any specific information as to how
a
>      particular XML document should be processed, is there
>      a default way to process it that always makes sense?"
> 
> For my part the answer to that question is "no". I could
> want xml:include processing after schema validation, for
> example, because I'm getting xinclude attributes from the
> schema. Certainly I wouldn't want to see a statement from
> W3C that said, "you _must_ always processes XML documents
> as follows unless there is an XProc pipeline embedded in
> the document." Even a "should" would make me
> uncomfortable.

First of all, Liam, thanks for your response. You are
helping clarify my thinking.

Secondly, yes, what Liam said is closer to what I am
seeking.

> However, specifying a default behaviour for an XProc
> processor in the absence of a pipeline seems to me
> entirely reasonable, and could be argued to define the
> sort of default behavioural semantics Tim wanted.
> Certainly, like Murray, I'd expect to see where W3C XML
> Schema validation fitted into that picture, as well as
> xml:base, xml:id, entity expansion (that one's easy), and
> xinclude. 

Hopefully, that would answer the question, "Given an
arbitrary XML document,
how does one successfully build a complete infoset in
preparation for further
processing?"

Catching XIncludes that only reveal themselves after
validation should be a goal
of the default process, I imagine.

> That's a little less ambitious than Murray's
> list, partly because I think the specs outside the W3C XML
> Activity need to build on what we do, not interweave
> themselves into the middle of it, so the answer for the
> rest is "after the default pipeline has finished."

I am happy with that boundary. Makes sense and can be easily
argued.
Saves us a lot of work in other domains as well. Leave it to
them to 
describe their processing profiles and/or pipelines on their
own.

Regards,

Murray

Received on Friday, 16 April 2010 18:47:02 UTC