[XML-SIG] Is this a bug?

[Fred L. Drake, Jr.]

Martijn Faassen writes:
 > namespaceURI of type DOMString, readonly, introduced in DOM Level 2
...
 > I actually appreciate the explictness of namespaces in the DOM, even
 > though there's a mismatch with usage in XML. It simplifies implementation

  The catch with this is that the DOM ends up offering no integrity
assurances internally.  I can see where this would be a pain for some
applications, but it's really impossible to add this --- more
applications benefit from the free to make complicated edits and then
force a check (using normalizeNS() or other methods added in DOM Level
3) when the edits are complete.

 > a lot, which is badly needed as so many parts of the spec *complicate*
 > implementation (liveness issues are just one example).

  Those are a nice can of worms, aren't they?  I know how to address
them in ParsedXML.DOM, and plan to do so, but no time is currently
scheduled for that.

 > Zope's ParsedXML has a large DOM unit test suite which can be run against
 > 4DOM as well. I've recently been advocating getting this test suite out
 > of ParsedXML and into PyXML instead. This way we can make sure the Python
 > DOM implementations are up to spec much better.

  I'll take this as an opportunity to voice my support of any
initiative to split the ParsedXML DOM tests into a separate package so
that it may be more easily used without having to grab a ParsedXML
distribution.  Martijn Pieters put a *lot* of good work into those
tests, and we pulled a number of clarifications from the W3C to
achieve it.

 > Of course the test suite can contain wrong interpretations of the DOM
 > spec as well, but a lot of care was taken during the development of it,
 > and it can be further improved should problems appear.

  Yet another reason to split it out from ParsedXML, given the
availability of time to work on that project.


  -Fred

-- 
Fred L. Drake, Jr.  <fdrake at acm.org>
PythonLabs at Zope Corporation