14084 2011-09-08 12:13:02 +0000 Hi! Returning a null from getItem() if the key does not exist is downright semantically wrong. null is a full-fledged value which can be serialized (JSONed), and is NOT the value we get if we do: var x = myObject.someUnknownProperty; In that case we get t 2011-10-12 01:59:01 +0000 1 1 1 Unclassified WebAppsWG Web Storage (editor: Ian Hickson) unspecified Other other RESOLVED WONTFIX http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#top P3 normal --- 1 contributor ian annevk art.barstow ayg ian jackalmage mike public-webapps public-webapps-bugzilla oldest_to_newest 56525 0 contributor 2011-09-08 12:13:02 +0000 Specification: http://dev.w3.org/html5/webstorage/ Multipage: http://www.whatwg.org/C#top Complete: http://www.whatwg.org/c#top Comment: Hi! Returning a null from getItem() if the key does not exist is downright semantically wrong. null is a full-fledged value which can be serialized (JSONed), and is NOT the value we get if we do: var x = myObject.someUnknownProperty; In that case we get the 'undefined' value, and that is what the return value of getItem() _should_ be if the item is not found. undefined is not serializable (JSONable) and is never a valid value, whereas null is sometimes an application-/domain-valid value. Returning null from getItem() is ambiguous in the case of an application using null as a placeholder or a "falsy" value. Returning undefined is unambiguous. ----- stephan beal (sgbeal@googlemail.com) Posted from: 194.246.122.11 User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.218 Safari/535.1 56533 1 jackalmage 2011-09-08 15:31:30 +0000 If you store a null value, it gets serialized to the string "null". When you pull it back out, you get the string back, not the null value. It's impossible get an actual null value back out of a valid key. 56666 2 ayg 2011-09-12 17:18:26 +0000 Also, this is how UAs behave now, and it's unlikely we can change it without breaking compat. 58074 3 art.barstow 2011-10-11 20:13:12 +0000 I think v1 of this spec should focus on current implementations and as such, the change proposed in comment 0 can be considered for the next version of the spec. 58100 4 annevk 2011-10-12 00:31:49 +0000 Art, we cannot resolve this LATER, because at that point it would break compatibility with v1. So we have to decide now whether this is WONTFIX or not. 58103 5 annevk 2011-10-12 01:59:01 +0000 WONTFIX per comment 2 and comment 4. If you disagree with this resolution please reopen.