Comments on http://docs.oasis-open.org/search-ws/searchRetrieve/v1.0/csprd01/part5-cql/searchRetrieve-v1.0-csprd01-part5-cql.html

["Zwaal,Martin" <Martin.Zwaal@oclc.org>]

Hi OASIS, could these points about CQL be clarified?

 

1.       In par. “3.4 Search Term” it is explained that the backslash (\) is used to escape quote (“) as well as itself. The list of forbidden characters for simple-strings is specified as: left or right angle bracket, left or right parenthesis, equal, backslash, quote, whitespace. But in par. “4 CQL Query Syntax: ABNF” it is explained that simple-strings shouldn’t contain “()/<=> or whitespace. These paragraphs are a bit confusing.

a)      What about the forward slash (/), is it  a special character or not?

b)      Should backslash-escaping be done in unquoted strings as well?

c)       Is it possible to escape other characters except double-quotes and backslashes, like “\a”? I think there’s nothing wrong with “\a” to be interpreted as “a”. But quote par. “B.3.3 Matching”: “:Backslash (\) is used to escape '*', '?', quote (") and '^' , as well as itself. Backslash not followed immediately by one of these characters is an error.”. It would be nice if escaping can be applied consistently throughout the protocol.

 

1.       Is CQL Unicode compliant? For example what exactly is the definition of whitespace in CQL?

 

Thanks,

Martin Zwaal