[css-lists] Value for counter-reset & counter-increment properties: <ident> or <custom-ident>?

Hi www-style,

Do the "counter-reset" and "counter-increment" properties take "<ident>"
or "<custom-ident>"[1] for the counter name?

Currently, they're specced as taking <ident>:

  # Value: [ <ident> <integer>? ]+ | none
  http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-lists/#counter-properties

...but I think that might just be because <custom-ident> wasn't
available the last time the css-lists spec was updated, or something
like that.

The difference between these two types is that <custom-ident> explicitly
excludes reserved keywords like "inherit" and "initial", as well as
other keywords in the property's value-definition ("none" in this case).
See more at http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-values/#custom-idents

Also, note that <custom-ident> matches the spirit of this
not-quite-requirement in CSS2.1, where these properties were originally
defined:
 # The keywords 'none', 'inherit' and 'initial' must
 # not be used as counter names.
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/generate.html#propdef-counter-increment

(I say "not-quite-requirement" because that text sounds like an
authoring guideline; it doesn't actually indicate what a UA should do if
those tokens *are* used by an author.)

So, anyway: is it reasonable to assume that these properties really take
<custom-ident>, *not* <ident>?

Thanks!
~Daniel

Received on Wednesday, 20 November 2013 02:46:13 UTC