Clarification of a DOM Level 3 XPath last-call issue query-4

Peter, I am copying www-dom on this request for clarification.

During last-call of the DOM XPath API, you made the following comment:

"The description of result-types mkay be improved.  In particular, a 
uniform wording may be used for the snapshot semantics of nodetypes 
"ANY_UNORDERED_NODE_TYPE", "FIRST_UNORDERED_NODE_TYPE", 
"ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE", "UNORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE", and all 
simple node types.

The working group has asked me to try to get a better understanding of 
what you mean?

In the particular case you gave, the wording is consistent between the 
snapshots.

The single node results cannot use the "snapshot" wording because they 
aree not snapshots.  Only a single node was returned, so there is no set 
to become inconsistent.

I do not know what you mean by "all simple node types".  You mentioned 
the only two single node types.  If you meant "simple values", these are 
not nodes at all, so there is little if any liveness issue -- certainly 
not the same issue.

It would be very helpful if you could give us examples of the type of 
wording you would like to see in each case, and we could discuss whether 
it was accurate or work towards a better language.  It is my impression 
that the language is accurate and appropriate as it stands, but as a 
working group we would like to better understand how you thought it 
might be improved.

Thanks,

Ray Whitmer
W3C DOM Chair
rayw@netscape.com

Received on Monday, 5 August 2002 20:00:33 UTC