Request for clarification, possible spec defect

• From: <gmarcy@us.ibm.com>
• Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 23:34:01 -0500
• To: www-xpath-comments@w3.org
• Message-ID: <872568AC.001916CF.00@d53mta07h.boulder.ibm.com>

I have run across the following inconsistency in the spec:

In section "3.7 Lexical Structure", it says the following:

        "If the character following an NCName (possibly after intervening
ExprWhitespace) is (, then the token
        must be recognized as a NodeType or a FunctionName."

and

        "Otherwise, the token must not be recognized as a MultiplyOperator,
 an OperatorName, a NodeType, a
        FunctionName, or an AxisName."

However, the production for FunctionName reads:

    [35] FunctionName ::= QName - NodeType


So the question is "Can a FunctionName contain a ':' character?"  If it
can, then the earlier prose needs to
say that the '(' can follow a QName, not just an NCName.  If not, then the
production for FunctionName
should be "FunctionName ::= NCName - NodeType".

Comments?

Glenn Marcy
Technical Consultant
XML Technology Group, IBM

Received on Thursday, 23 March 2000 23:40:35 UTC