Re: [office] Are all charts always backed by a table?

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

"Dave Pawson" <dave.pawson@gmail.com> wrote on 08/13/2008 09:30:22 AM:

> 
> 2008/8/13 Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>:
> 
> > If a vendor is conforming to the standard and the standard says data 
for a
> > chart is in a table
> 
> 
> I thought specifications 'required' content, not made statements of
> fact about content.
> 

Conformance definitions require use of modal verbs such as shall/should, 
etc.  But using simple definitions and declarative statements elsewhere is 
fine.  If needed for conformance, you can always put an umbrella statement 
elsewhere.

For example, look at XPath 2.0, which I happen to have in front of me. The 
core function library is defined in a  purely declarative fashion:

"Function: boolean starts-with(string, string) 
The starts-with function returns true if the first argument string starts 
with the second argument string, and otherwise returns false."
Where are the requirements?
But note that the core function library is introduced as "This section 
describes functions that XPath implementations must always include in the 
function library that is used to evaluate expressions.". That's the 
language that connects it all.  You do not need to say for every 
functions, "The starts-with function must return true....".
Similarly, we can trap this all in the ODF 1.2 conformance definition with 
umbrella language like "ODF elements and attributes which are optional 
according to the Relax NG Schema, if present shall be implemented in a way 
consistent with the definitions provided in this specification" or 
something similar.

-Rob