Re: Namespace resolution in L3 Core and XPath (was Full infoset support for DOM 3 Core)

Curt Arnold wrote:

>Actually, in that context you wouldn't even need to go to Unicode
>characters, you could use the return value "#default" when the URI matches
>the default namespace and leave "" for no match.
>
>The design of element.getAttribute() seems to have anticipated the problem
>by explicitly returning "" instead of null when the attribute name is not
>found.
>
Many consider that a wart.  It made us require another method to test 
for attribute existence.

>For already recommended methods, there needs to be a resolution that
>accomodates the deployed implementations where Java implementations return
>null and ECMAScript implementations return "".  However, for L3 methods,
>avoiding the use of null DOMString parameters and attributes in the
>definition would preempt having to deal with it in the bindings.
>
If I am not mistaken, ECMAScript implementations which substitute "" 
where the spec says null are broken.  That does not preclude other 
bindings from making that substitution where required, but the 
ECMAScript binding does not require it.  Log a bug against mozilla and 
vote for it.  I was told it is clearly broken behavior.

Ray Whitmer
rayw@netscape.com

Received on Friday, 7 September 2001 15:32:50 UTC