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Bug 8229 - Frag: XPath Level 1's treatment of unqualified element names is dangerous
Summary: Frag: XPath Level 1's treatment of unqualified element names is dangerous
Status: CLOSED REMIND
Alias: None
Product: WS-Resource Access
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Fragment (show other bugs)
Version: FPWD
Hardware: All All
: P2 normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Gilbert Pilz
QA Contact: notifications mailing list for WS Resource Access
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Reported: 2009-11-07 19:49 UTC by Gilbert Pilz
Modified: 2010-03-17 11:31 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

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Description Gilbert Pilz 2009-11-07 19:49:41 UTC
The description of the XPath Level 1 expression language contains the following:

"NOTE: If the element name is unqualified, i.e. appears without a namespace prefix, then the element name MUST be matched against a matching element name in the resource document, regardless of namespace bindings that are in effect, including default bindings. This allows implementations to simply match element names in the majority of cases. If namespace bindings are significant for all elements, then qualified names MUST be used."

Oracle review comment: "this is asking for so much trouble. what if 2 elements in different namespaces have the same local name? haven't we learned anything from the failure that dos/windows case-insensitivity is?"

It's unclear whether the "If namespace bindings are significant . . ." sentence applies to this case. In any case, requiring the client to know whether or not there are multiple elements in different namespaces with the same local name *before* they construct their expression creates a tighter coupling between the client and the exact resource representation than we seem to have in mind.
Comment 1 Robert Freund 2010-01-28 19:04:37 UTC
resolved by striking the note