Re: [xacml] And, Or, and N-Of

[Seth Proctor <Seth.Proctor@Sun.COM>]

On Thu, 2003-07-10 at 15:24, Polar Humenn wrote:
> Also, I'm a little concerned about the definitions of and, or, and n-of. 
> It seems that we changed the last sentence of each of these descriptions 
> from:
> 
> 	If any argument while being evaluated according to this order
> 	raises an error, the expression SHALL return "Indeterminate".
> 
> to
> 
> 	In an expression that contains any of these functions, if any argument is 
> 	"Indeterminate", then the expression SHALL evaluate to
> 	"Indeterminate".
> 
> Aside from being a horrible sentence (did I write that? :), it changes the
> meaning entirely.

I seem to recall a conversation about this when the text was changed
(though now I can't find the email). I was also concerned, but I was
told that the meaning wasn't changed by the new text. Personally, I find
the new text terrible, and I don't understand why the change was made,
but there it is. Does anyone else remember this, or am I making things
up? I know I was told that short-circuit evaluation was still correct,
but I can't find anything to back that up now...

As an aside, I can see how you read the new text to say that it's still
ok to do short-circuit evaluation, it's just less clear. I think we're
supposed to read "an argument is 'Indeterminate'" to mean that we
evaluate in order and find something that's Indeterminate. But, again, I
could have this one wrong. If I am wrong, then this is a problem that
should be addressed.


seth