- From: Ulrich Nicolas Lissé <unl@dreamlab.net>
- Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 23:43:59 +0200
- To: ebruchez@orbeon.com
- CC: public-forms@w3.org, www-forms-editor@w3.org
Erik, I think an empty string is clearly a zero-length string. While this might be owed to a technical background I see the usability issue. However, you could avoid whitespace-only strings from being submitted with <xf:bind ... constraint="string-length(normalize-space(.)) > 0"/> or by defining a subtype of xs:string disallowing whitespace-only character sequences. This is a bit tedious for the for author, but I don't think we should handle empty and whitespace-only strings equally in general. I can't think of a half-decent use case for whitespace-only strings right now, but I'm convinced some form author will have a use case requiring white space to submit. Regards, Uli. Erik Bruchez wrote: > > All, > > I have a doubt about the meaning of "empty" in the wording "required but > empty" (which appears in 11.2.3 and 4.3.5). > > It seems that "empty" could either mean: > > 1. A zero-length string (clear technical interpretation) > 2. A string empty as per #1 above, or a string with only white-space > (human-friendly interpretation) > > Imagine a user entering by error a space in an input field. Visually, > with most agents (typically web browsers), you can't tell whether the > field is empty according to #1 above, or contains white space. So to the > user, the field is "empty". > > But if the XForms implementation implements #1, then this visually empty > field will be considered non-empty, and pass submission even if required. > > This would favor an interpretation of "empty" where not only strictly > empty strings are "empty", but also strings containing only white space. > > At the very least, the spec should say whether it means #1, #2, or > implementation-dependent. > > -Erik > -- Ulrich Nicolas Lissé
Received on Tuesday, 29 May 2007 21:44:55 UTC