20361 2012-12-12 16:37:59 +0000 Grammar is wrong for serializers 2016-10-22 16:09:05 +0000 1 1 1 Unclassified WebAppsWG WebIDL unspecified PC All RESOLVED MOVED P2 normal --- 1 robin cam bzbarsky d dom jl mike public-script-coord travil public-webapps-bugzilla oldest_to_newest 80014 0 robin 2012-12-12 16:37:59 +0000 A serializer is supposed to be able to be: serializer identifier name(); But the syntax has that as serializer OperationRest. OperationRest does not include the identifier, so it needs to be added. 80015 1 robin 2012-12-12 16:39:09 +0000 (In reply to comment #0) > A serializer is supposed to be able to be: > > serializer identifier name(); > > But the syntax has that as serializer OperationRest. OperationRest does not > include the identifier, so it needs to be added. Of course I would be more readable if I were awake. I meant serializer type identifier(); The type is not accounted for in the syntax. 80479 2 dom 2012-12-21 14:24:29 +0000 Maybe relatedly, the grammar prevents having a ";" (instead of mandating it) after an empty serializer declaration. interface Foo { serializer }; // valid according to the current grammar interface Foo { serializer; }; // invalid according to the current grammar 118866 3 jl 2015-03-23 11:59:46 +0000 The grammar also lacks support for the serializer = { attribute }; and serializer = { inherit, attribute }; variants. 118869 4 bzbarsky 2015-03-23 12:39:59 +0000 I still claim the entire serializer setup is overengineered. Does anyone really want anything other than { attribute } for interfaces with no ancestors that have serializers or { inherit, attribute } for ones that have such ancestors? 118896 5 travil 2015-03-24 13:55:57 +0000 (In reply to Boris Zbarsky from comment #4) > I still claim the entire serializer setup is overengineered. Does anyone > really want anything other than { attribute } for interfaces with no > ancestors that have serializers or { inherit, attribute } for ones that have > such ancestors? In IE, we've only wanted (and implemented) this for the NavigationTiming [1] and related interfaces, in order to make it easy to package and serialize the attributes. +1 for potentially simplifying the grammar to remove use-cases until/unless we find a good reason for them. [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/navigation-timing/#sec-navigation-timing-interface 118897 6 bzbarsky 2015-03-24 14:07:57 +0000 In Gecko's case we use it for some of the timing stuff, but also for some WebRTC interfaces (RTCIceCandidate, RTCSessionDescription). In any case, all those consumers want to serialize all the attributes. 127923 7 d 2016-10-22 16:09:05 +0000 Consolidating serializer issues into a simplification issue at https://github.com/heycam/webidl/issues/188