[XML-SIG] repost: getElementsByTagName interpretation

[Martijn Faassen]

Andrew M. Kuchling wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 23, 2000 at 05:09:13PM +0200, Martijn Faassen wrote:
> >On the one hand I desperately want to implement the simple non-live behavior,
> >as doing the other is a major pain. On the other hand, I'd risk introducing
> >an incompatibility with other DOMs.
> 
> I'd be interested in knowing if there's any DOM that *does* implement
> the live NodeList behaviour for getElementsByTagName(); when I looked
> at IBM's and Sun's around that time, they certainly didn't seem to.

That's interesting -- the new DOM level 2 proposal and the requirements
proposal don't seem to be talking about getting rid of this 'feature' of
the DOM; in fact the DOM level 2 clarifies it, I think.

> Mozilla's doesn't seem to, either.  Can anyone point to a DOM that
> actually does provide this liveness feature?  I suspect there are
> none...

That's interesting. :) (presumably the other DOMs _do_ implement live NodeLists
for getChildNodes() and such?)

> Frankly, the DOM spec is broken in this respect; supporting a live
> NodeList from getElementsByTagName() would add a lot of complexity, a
> lot of bookkeeping, and more bugs.  I don't think it's worth the pain.

Agreed, definitely. The more I think about possible implementation strategies,
the more I agree. :) There just has to be somekind of reasoning behind
making this list live, right? I wonder what..

Regards,

Martijn