Re: xforms:submission with GET but no parameters

Hi Eric,

The XForms recommendation, as stated, assumes that a node will be 
selected.  It does not
say what happens on failure to select a node, although that makes the 
validation rather hard.

Due to this, an action item was created to write an erratum to XForms to 
say that an xforms-submit-error
occurs if there is no instance data to submit.  Since it was an erratum, 
it ended up on my plate.

So, I performed that action item some time ago, and the result appears in 
the erratum list,
the full spec and even the thin spec available from our website.
In fact, for 1.1 I even updated it so that the errorname says no-data

I see from your email that you have a use case to the contrary of the 
erratum.  This is fine.
I will add this email to the list, and if the use case is accepted, then I 
would ask that you please 
consider taking the action item to make the necessary changes in the 
submit default processing 
to account for having no data.

It might be best to limit this to method=get, yes?
I would think two or three of the bullet points must change, not just the 
one containing the submit-error.

I believe that the thin spec changes will differ from the errata/full 
spec.  However, we are hoping to 
publish an updated thin spec working draft and updated errata document on 
July 12, so
getting the work done before then (allowing time for integration) would be 
helpful.

Thanks,
John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
Senior Product Architect/Research Scientist
Co-Chair, W3C XForms Working Group
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Victoria Software Lab
E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com  http://www.ibm.com/software/

Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer





Erik Bruchez <ebruchez@orbeon.com> 
Sent by: www-forms-request@w3.org
06/27/2006 05:27 AM

To
"'www-forms'" <www-forms@w3.org>
cc

Subject
xforms:submission with GET but no parameters







All,

Under "11.1 The xforms-submit Event", I read that:

   "A node from the instance data is selected, based on attributes on
   the submission element. The indicated node and all nodes for which
   it is an ancestor are considered for the remainder of the submit
   process. Any node which is considered not relevant as defined in
   6.1.4 The relevant Property is removed."

So it looks like there is an absolute requirement, for a submission,
to select a node in an instance (the spec doesn't say what happens if
the single-node binding points to a non-existing node). This is done
through either @ref or @bind on the xforms:submission element (and I
assume that if both are missing we get the root element of the first
instance).

But there are cases where you don't want to actually submit any
instance data in a submission when using the GET method.

For example, I may simply want to perform an instance replacement by
loading the URL located in the @action attribute.

Also, with XForms 1.1, it will be possible to dynamically update the
submission action, and with REST, you will often use this to build
URLs that only consist of a path, such as:

   http://example.org/bookmarks/ebruchez.

The way I have been working around this is to use a dummy instance and
to say @ref="instance('dummy')". But this is ugly and non-intuitive:

   <xforms:instance id="dummy">
     <dummy/>
   </xforms:instance>

   <xforms:submission id="update-bookmarks"
     ref="instance('dummy')"
     method="get" action="/bookmarks/ebruchez}"
     replace="instance" instance="bookmarks"/>

So did I miss something, or do we in fact have to use such a
workaround when using GET to create a URL that does not have any
request parameters?

If I am right, then I think we should address this soon.

-Erik

-- 
Orbeon - XForms Everywhere:
http://www.orbeon.com/blog/