The Catalog of Vague, final September 2000 edition

[David_Marston@lotus.com]

This is the OASIS list of areas where the XSLT and XPath Recommendations
are not precise enough for the OASIS conformance committee (or XSLT
processor developers) to tell what is correct behavior. Each item has a
handy mnemonic label. (Aside to Scott Boag: this version can be brought to
the W3C Working Group.)

This list includes vague areas that we already know have been brought to
the WG (in part C). XPath items occur at the bottom of each section and
have "XPath-" at the start of their mnemonic.

PART A. Policy questions
[attrib-set-merge] In the process of merging same-named attribute sets,
must each set to be merged be individually resolved with respect to its own
attributes, including any use-attribute-sets it carries, before the merger
takes place?
[attrib-set-not-exist] Is an attempt to use-attribute-sets with a
non-existent set an error, ignorable, or developer's choice between those
two?
[copy-namespace] If the current node is a namespace node, is there any
discretion about where <xsl:copy/> puts it in the result? If xsl:copy is
applied to a namespaced attribute, and the namespace in question would not
already be in scope in the result, is there any discretion about where
<xsl:copy/> puts the namespace node in the result?
[fallback-top-level] Can xsl:fallback be implemented inside a top-level
"extension" element? If so, must it be detected and instantiated as with
instructions?
[func-system-property-namespace] What rules apply to use of either the
default or xsl namespaces on arguments to system-property (if the processor
developer wishes to add more properties)?
[key-unique-name] Since "each key name may be thought of as distinguishing
a separate, independent space of identifiers", would multiple xsl:key
declarations with the same key name be allowed? If so, how do the multiple
declarations interact?
[namespace-alias-intermediate] Should the namespace-alias be applied upon
first creation of the nodes, even if that creation is for a transitory
object like a result tree fragment in a variable?
[namespace-alias-result-prefix] Should the result-prefix in
namespace-alias, if not #default, be the exact prefix used in the output?
[sort-case-order] Does the case-order attribute of xsl:sort pertain to
ascending order, and its opposite to descending order?
[source-notations] What should the XSLT processor do about "notations" in
the source document? (Mentioned in Appendix G
http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt#section-Features-under-Consideration-for-Future-Versions-of-XSLT)

At this time, the question is being restricted to the effects on the tree:
position(), count(), etc.

PART B. Requests for explicit statements
[func-document-second-empty] If document() is called with two arguments and
the second is an empty node-set, should the second argument be ignored?
[number-NaN] If xsl:number is called with a value set to positive or
negative infinity, or any string that cannot be converted to a number, how
should it be formatted?
[number-alpha-roman] Should xsl:number render a negative number (specified
in value) or a zero, even in alphabetic and Roman-numeral formats?
[XPath-negative-zero-multiply] Does the product of -0 and any non-zero
number equal -0? Does (-0)*0 equal -0? Does (-0)*(-0) equal 0? Does (-0)
div {any non-zero number} equal -0?

PART C. Questions noted for the record, but which we believe the WG already
plans to answer
[excluded-prefix-needed] What should be the effect of an attempt to emit an
element or attribute bound to a namespace on the list of excluded
namespaces? How about <xsl:copy/> when the current node is a namespace
node?
[sort-NaN] Where should strings that cannot be converted to number values
be placed in ascending and descending numeric sorts? The relative order of
the strings is not in question, rather the question is whether they appear
in a clump before/after the lowest number, or always at the beginning or
end regardless of sort order.
[XPath-ceiling-NaN] Should ceiling() of any string that cannot be converted
to a number return NaN?
[XPath-ceiling-negative-fraction] Should ceiling(-0.1) return positive or
negative zero?
[XPath-contains-main-empty] If the first argument to contains() is empty
and the second argument is non-empty, should false be returned? Given that
every string contains the empty string, does the empty string contain
itself? (In other words, does contains("","") return true?)
[XPath-floor-NaN] Should floor() of any string that cannot be converted to
a number return NaN?
.................David Marston