RE: ANY in the DASL spec

Going to DAV:operator instead of any I think induces two problems:

1 - makes the grammar more unreadable. I know this is in some ways not a big
deal -- no user will see these queries, but having a lot of XML:elements
makes it confusing. People, by far, wanted the "low-fat" grammar in "01"
than the original "00" grammar.

2 - And this is the more serious concern ... I think this limits the
extensibility. The point of saying ANY in this case was to allow search
arbiters to easily extend the search grammar. If they needed to have a new
operator they can implement one and expose it as a namespaced XML element
without fear of interfering with other operators. 

As for moving DAV:prop and DAV:literal for all the search operators I think
this doesn't add any new capability -- if the element isn't DAV:literal then
there is nothing else it can identify except a property. Adding a prop
element in this case is also perhaps harmful ... DAV:prop is defined to
potentially contain multiple properties, not a single property.

-Saveen

-----Original Message-----
From: Judith Slein [mailto:slein@wrc.xerox.com]
Sent: Friday, April 17, 1998 2:37 PM
To: www-webdav-dasl@w3.org
Subject: ANY in the DASL spec


There are lots of definitions where I feel as if we are just copping out by
defining an element to be ANY.

8.4 DAV:where -- change ANY to DAV:operator (I think Jim is also going to
need DAV:operator to be defined for 8.9), and define DAV:operator to be
(and | or | not | eq | lt | lte | gt | gte | contains)

8.5 DAV:sortby -- change ANY to (prop | rank)

8.7 all of the search operators -- change ANY to (prop | literal)


Name:		Judith A. Slein
E-Mail:		slein@wrc.xerox.com
Phone:  	(716) 422-5169
Fax:		(716) 422-2938

Xerox Corporation
Mail Stop 105-50C
800 Phillips Road
Webster, NY 14580

Received on Monday, 20 April 1998 17:24:56 UTC