What precisely is "instance data"?

It seems to me that the current WD is a little woolly about what is or isn't 
instance data.

The definitions in the glossary states that instance data is an internal tree 
representation. But Chapter 2.2, third bullet point refers to instance data 
provided by the instance data in an attribute.

So which is the "true" position?

Is instance data only the internal tree representation as the Glossary 
states? Or is the serialised content of xforms:instance also instance data? 
Is the "submitted data" also instance data or, since it is serialised it is 
something else since it isn't an "internal tree representation".

I don't have problems describing the process but the terminology does need to 
be tidied up, in my opinion.

Do we, for example, have "initialization data" provided by the content of 
xforms:instance, plus "form data" displayed on screen and modified by the 
user, plus "submitted data", the serialized data sent to the server plus 
"instance data", the in-memory tree structure? Or some other variant?

A side issue in 2.2. The text just before the second piece of example code 
refers to a "fuller version" of the "above example". It is, of course, a 
different example, with, for example, a <payment> element replacing a <root> 
element.

Andrew Watt

Received on Thursday, 29 August 2002 08:58:32 UTC