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Bug 21757 - [HTML] editorial: referring to steps by number
Summary: [HTML] editorial: referring to steps by number
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: WHATWG
Classification: Unclassified
Component: HTML (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All All
: P5 trivial
Target Milestone: Unsorted
Assignee: Ian 'Hixie' Hickson
QA Contact: contributor
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2013-04-19 20:14 UTC by Michael Dyck
Modified: 2013-06-04 20:59 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

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Description Michael Dyck 2013-04-19 20:14:24 UTC
Normally, the spec refers to a step by its label,
but there are a few places where a step is referred to
by its *number*, which seems somewhat error-prone.

    2.4.4.5 "Lists of integers"
    in 'rules for parsing a list of integers',
    step 6:
        ... then return to step 4.

    12.2.3.2 "The stack of open elements"
    algorithm for 'have an element in a specific scope',
    step 4:
        ... and return to step 2.

    12.2.3.3 "The list of active formatting elements"
    algorithm for 'reconstruct the active formatting elements',
    steps 4, 6, 11:
        ... then jump to step 8.
        ... go to step 4.
        ... return to step 7.

----

For completeness, there's also:

    12.2.3.3
    alg for 'clear the list of active formatting elements ...',
    step 4:
        Go to step 1.

and

    12.2.6 "The end",
    alg for 'stops parsing',
    step 3.4:
        ... repeat these substeps again from substep 1.

but references to "[sub]step 1" are probably less error-prone.
(Likewise references to "the first/last/previous/next step".)
Comment 1 Ian 'Hixie' Hickson 2013-04-19 23:52:45 UTC
Yeah, at some point I realised I kept making mistakes with numbered references, and switched to labels. The ones with numbers still are those I haven't had to fix since that time years ago.
Comment 2 Ian 'Hixie' Hickson 2013-06-04 20:59:11 UTC
I'm going to leave this as is, because fixing them can be risky. I'll fix them if I ever edit the algorithms for other reasons (since then the risk is higher that I'll make a mistake in the edit if I leave the numbers as is).