[General] Platform independance

> * We need to guarantee platform independence of our tests. Tests should
> not rely on the tree structure unless explicitly specified by the spec.
> 
> (I agree with the first sentence, not quite sure what you mean by the
> second; DD.)  Are you pointing to the problems that are exposed as a
> result of whitespace issues and entity expansion issues?  If so, do you
> think that this could be handled by toggling expected results based on
> whether an implementation has these features turned on or off, or is it
> more difficult? [mb]
> I think the issue being addressed here is that tests shouldn't expect
> elements in any particular order.   For instance, a test should not
> expect a list of attributes on an element in any particular order.  It
> should only expect that the attributes are present. [jb]
> 
I agree, the spec is the final authority on these matters. 

> * The idea is that the test suite is platform independent. How do we
> provide tests for definitions, like the attribute collection? The number
> of returned attributes is dependent on the DTD of the given platform. Is
> there a min-bar, like the attribute collections exists or not to
> validate these kinds of tests? 
> (DD to W3C WG)
> Can you forward a concrete example of this in the form of a test? [mb]
> I think this issue goes along with the last bullet under technical
> details.  Attaching a test case for the attributes collection:  In IE,
> this case will alert approximately 80 attributes because assign all (or
> nearly all) attributes a default value of an empty string.  Netscape 6
> assigns no default attributes.  A min-bar would dictate a minimum set of
> attributes that should be defined (either by default of by declaration).
> [jb]
> 
My initial reaction is as I stated elsewhere: if the spec expects a certain
set of attributes, this is what the implementation should expose. I suppose
the min-bar would be this set.

Received on Monday, 9 April 2001 08:39:28 UTC