XForms 1.1: Submit event (11.2) - @serialize

The @serialize attribute seems to be a useful way of doing this:

  <xf:submission
    ref="/IHaveNoDataToSendIJustWantToUseSubmission"
    method="get" action="..."
  />

i.e.:

  <xf:submission
    serialize="false"
    method="get" action="..."
  />

However, because @serialize is not referred to until step 7 in 11.2,
the processor will already have gone through relevance filtering and
validity testing. Also, if there were no node to serialise from, step
2 would actually fail, despite the fact that the author actually
doesn't want to serialise anything.

Is it possible we can harmonise the two more, so that serialize can be
used to indicate that you don't want to send any data, but you do want
to use the whole submission infrastructure. This is particularly
common when using a REST design, since a GET on a URL is all you need
to do to get a resource. Likewise picking up RSS feeds.

Perhaps a modification to step 2 along these lines is all that's needed:

  A node from the instance data is selected, based on attributes on
  the submission element. <add>If the value of serialize is false,
  processing continues at step 4, with no data selected.</add> If the
  attributes of submission select an empty nodeset...

Regards,

Mark


-- 
  Mark Birbeck, formsPlayer

  mark.birbeck@x-port.net | +44 (0) 20 7689 9232
  http://www.formsPlayer.com | http://internet-apps.blogspot.com

  standards. innovation.

Received on Wednesday, 14 February 2007 10:18:44 UTC