W3C

Web IDL

W3C Working Draft 12 July 2011

This Version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-WebIDL-20110712/
Latest Stable Version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WebIDL/
Previous Version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/WD-WebIDL-20101021/
Latest Editor’s Draft:
http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/WebIDL/
Editor:
Cameron McCormack, Mozilla Corporation <cam@mcc.id.au>

Abstract

This document defines an interface definition language, Web IDL, that can be used to describe interfaces that are intended to be implemented in web browsers. Web IDL is an IDL variant with a number of features that allow the behavior of common script objects in the web platform to be specified more readily. How interfaces described with Web IDL correspond to constructs within ECMAScript and Java execution environments is also detailed in this document. It is expected that this document acts as a guide to implementors of already-published specifications, and that newly published specifications reference this document to ensure conforming implementations of interfaces are interoperable.

Status of This Document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.

This document is the 12 July 2011 Last Call Working Draft of the Web IDL specification. Please send comments about this document to public-script-coord@w3.org (archived).

Comments on this Last Call Working Draft are welcome. This Last Call ends on 23 August 2011. The Working Group intends to progress this document to Candidate Recommendation, but in the event of non-editorial changes being made in response to Last Call comments (which in the editor’s opinion is not unlikely), a second Last Call Working Draft will be published before doing so. Despite this, the Working Group believes the document is ready for wider review at this point.

This document is produced by the Web Applications Working Group, part of the Rich Web Clients Activity in the W3C Interaction Domain. Changes made to this document can be found in the W3C public CVS server.

In addition to the issues marked by editorial notes in this document, there is a list of open bugs on the specification.

Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

This section is informative.

Technical reports published by the W3C that include programming language interfaces have typically been described using the Object Management Group’s Interface Definition Language (IDL) [OMGIDL]. The IDL provides a means to describe these interfaces in a language independent manner. Usually, additional language binding appendices are included in such documents which detail how the interfaces described with the IDL correspond to constructs in the given language.

However, the bindings in these specifications for the language most commonly used on the web, ECMAScript, are consistently specified with low enough precision as to result in interoperability issues. In addition, each specification must describe the same basic information, such as DOM interfaces described in IDL corresponding to properties on the ECMAScript global object, or the unsigned long IDL type mapping to the Number type in ECMAScript.

This specification defines an IDL language similar to OMG IDL for use by specifications that define interfaces for Web APIs. A number of extensions are given to the IDL to support common functionality that previously must have been written in prose. In addition, precise language bindings for ECMAScript 5th Edition and Java 5 are given.

2. Conformance

Everything in this specification is normative except for diagrams, examples, notes and sections marked as being informative.

The keywords “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY” and “OPTIONAL” in this document are to be interpreted as described in Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels [RFC2119].

The following conformance classes are defined by this specification:

conforming IDL fragment

An IDL fragment is considered to be a conforming IDL fragment if it satisfies all of the MUST-, REQUIRED- and SHALL-level criteria in this specification that apply to IDL fragments.

conforming implementation

A user agent is considered to be a conforming implementation relative to a conforming IDL fragment if it satisfies all of the MUST-, REQUIRED- and SHALL-level criteria in this specification that apply to implementations for all language bindings that the user agent supports.

conforming ECMAScript implementation

A user agent is considered to be a conforming ECMAScript implementation relative to a conforming IDL fragment if it satisfies all of the MUST-, REQUIRED- and SHALL-level criteria in this specification that apply to implementations for the ECMAScript language binding.

conforming Java implementation

A user agent is considered to be a conforming Java implementation relative to a conforming IDL fragment if it satisfies all of the MUST-, REQUIRED- and SHALL-level criteria in this specification that apply to implementations for the Java language binding.

3. Interface definition language

This section describes a language, Web IDL, which can be used to define interfaces for APIs in the Web platform. A specification that defines Web APIs can include one or more IDL fragments that describe the interfaces (in the object-oriented sense) for the APIs defined by that specification. An IDL fragment is a sequence of definitions that matches the Definitions grammar symbol. See Appendix A for the complete grammar and an explanation of the notation used.

The different kinds of definitions that can appear in an IDL fragment are: modules, interfaces, partial interface declarations, dictionaries, exceptions, typedefs and implements statements. These are all defined in the following sections.

Each definition (matching Definition) can be preceded by a list of extended attributes (matching ExtendedAttributeList), which can control how the definition will be handled in language bindings. The extended attributes defined by this specification that are language binding agnostic are discussed in section 3.10, while those specific to the ECMAScript language binding are discussed in section 4.3.

[extended-attributes]
interface identifier {
  interface-members…
};

Modules, described further in section 3.2 below, are used to group related definitions together in a single namespace. Definitions need not be placed in a module; those that are not are said to be declared at the outermost scope.

[1]DefinitionsDefinition Definitions
 | ε
[2]DefinitionExtendedAttributeList NormalDefinition
 | PartialInterface
[3]NormalDefinitionModule
 | Interface
 | Dictionary
 | Exception
 | Typedef
 | ImplementsStatement
Example

The following is an example of an IDL fragment.

IDL
module gfx {
  exception GraphicsException {
    DOMString reason;
  };

  interface Paint { };

  interface SolidColor : Paint {
    attribute float red;
    attribute float green;
    attribute float blue;
  };

  interface Pattern : Paint {
    attribute DOMString imageURL;
  };

  [Constructor]
  interface GraphicalWindow {
    readonly attribute unsigned long width;
    readonly attribute unsigned long height;

    attribute Paint currentPaint;

    void drawRectangle(in float x, in float y, in float width, in float height)
      raises(GraphicsException);

    void drawText(in float x, in float y, in DOMString text)
      raises(GraphicsException);
  };
};

Here, four interfaces and one exception are being defined. The GraphicalWindow interface has two read only attributes, one writable attribute, and two operations defined on it. Objects in the system that implement the GraphicalWindow interface will expose these attributes and operations in a manner appropriate to the particular language being used. For example, in ECMAScript, the attributes will be exposed as accessor properties and the operations as Function-valued data properties on a prototype object for all GraphicalWindow objects; each ECMAScript object that implements GraphicalWindow will have that prototype object in its prototype chain.

Since the interfaces and the exception all appear inside a module, they are not declared at the outermost scope. The module itself, however, is.

The [Constructor] that appears on GraphicalWindow is an extended attribute. This extended attribute causes a constructor to exist in ECMAScript implementations, so that calling new GraphicalWindow() would return a new object that implemented the interface.

3.1. Names

Every module, interface, partial interface definition, dictionary, exception and typedef (together called named definitions) and every constant, attribute, exception field and dictionary member has an identifier, as do some operations. The identifier is determined by an identifier token somewhere in the declaration:

  • For named definitions, the identifier token that appears directly after the module, interface, dictionary or exception keyword determines the identifier of that definition.
    module module-identifier { definitions… };
    interface interface-identifier { interface-members… };
    partial interface interface-identifier { interface-members… };
    exception exception-identifier { exception-members… };
    dictionary dictionary-identifier { dictionary-members… };
  • For constants, attributes, typedefs, exception fields and dictionary members, the final identifier token before the semicolon at the end of the declaration determines the identifier.
    interface identifier {
      const type constant-identifier = value;
      attribute type attribute-identifier;
    };
    
    typedef type typedef-identifier;
    
    exception identifier {
      type exception-member-identifier;
    };
    
    dictionary identifier {
      type dictionary-member-identifier;
    };
  • For operations, the identifier token that appears after the return type but before the opening parenthesis (that is, one that is matched as part of the OptionalIdentifier grammar symbol in an Operation) determines the identifier of the operation. If there is no such identifier token, then the operation does not have an identifier.
    return-type operation-identifier(arguments…);
Note

Operations can have no identifier when they are being used to declare a special kind of operation, such as a getter or setter.

For all of these constructs, the identifier is the value of the identifier token with any single leading U+005F LOW LINE ("_") character removed.

Note

A leading "_" is used to escape an identifier from looking like a reserved word so that, for example, an interface named “interface” can be defined.

Every named definition also has a qualified name, determined as follows:

  • If the definition is declared at the outermost scope, then the qualified name of the definition is two consecutive U+003A COLON (":") characters followed by the identifier of the definition.
  • Otherwise, the definition is not declared at the outermost scope. The qualified name of the definition is the qualified name of the definition’s enclosing module followed by two consecutive U+003A COLON (":") characters followed by the identifier of the definition.

The qualified name of every module, interface, dictionary, exception and typedef MUST NOT be the same as the qualified name of any other interface, dictionary, exception or typedef.

Note

Multiple module declarations can have the same qualified name. When a subsequent module declaration for the same qualified name is encountered, this effectively re-opens the module for definitions. See section 3.2 below for details.

A scoped name (matching ScopedName) is a string formed by concatenating a sequence of one or more identifiers and placing two consecutive U+003A COLON (":") characters between each pair of adjacent identifiers, and is used in IDL to refer to definitions in different scopes. A scoped name is an absolute scoped name if it begins with two consecutive U+003A COLON (":") characters, or a relative scoped name if it does not.

A scoped name can be resolved (relative to a module or to the outermost scope) to a named definition as follows:

  • If the scoped name is a relative scoped name, then the following steps gives the definition it resolves to:
    1. Let name be the qualified name of the module, or the empty string if resolving relative to the outermost scope.
    2. Loop:
      1. Let definition be the definition whose qualified name is equal to the concatenation of name, two U+003A COLON (":") characters and the scoped name, then the scoped name resolves to that definition; end these steps.
      2. Remove the last name component from name (that is, from the second last U+003A COLON (":") character to the end of the string, inclusive).
      until name is the empty string.
    3. The scoped name does not resolve to a definition.
  • Otherwise, the scoped name is an absolute scoped name:
    • If there exists a definition whose qualified name is equal to the scoped name, then the scoped name resolves to that definition.
    • Otherwise, the scoped name does not resolve to a definition.

Unless otherwise stated, the module being used to resolve a scoped name is the enclosing module of the definition on which the scoped name appears, or the outermost scope if it appears on a definition declared at the outermost scope.

[65]ScopedNameAbsoluteScopedName
 | RelativeScopedName
[66]AbsoluteScopedName"::" identifier ScopedNameParts
[67]RelativeScopedNameidentifier ScopedNameParts
[68]ScopedNameParts"::" identifier ScopedNameParts
 | ε
Example

The following IDL fragment demonstrates how identifiers and qualified names are given to definitions, interface members and exception members.

IDL
// Module identifier: "framework"
// Qualified name:    "::framework"
module framework {

  // Typedef identifier: "number"
  // Qualified name:    "::framework::number"
  typedef float number;

  // Exception identifier: "FrameworkException"
  // Qualified name:       "::framework::FrameworkException"
  exception FrameworkException {

    // Constant identifier: "ERR_NOT_FOUND"
    // Qualified name:      "::framework::FrameworkException::ERR_NOT_FOUND"
    const long ERR_NOT_FOUND = 1;

    // Exception field identifier: "code"
    long code;
  };

  // Interface identifier: "System"
  // Qualified name:       "::framework::System"
  interface System {

    // Operation identifier:          "createObject"
    // Operation argument identifier: "interface"
    object createObject(in DOMString _interface);

    // Operation has no identifier; it declares a getter.
    getter DOMString (in DOMString keyName);
  };

  // Module identifier: "gui"
  // Qualified name:    "::framework::gui"
  module gui {
    
    // Interface identifier: "TextField"
    // Qualified name:       "::framework::gui::TextField"
    interface TextField {

      // Attribute identifier: "const"
      attribute boolean _const;

      // Attribute identifier: "value"
      attribute DOMString? _value;
    };
  };
};

Note that while the second attribute on the TextField interface need not have been escaped with an underscore (because “value” is not a keyword in the IDL grammar), it is still unescaped to obtain the attribute’s identifier.

3.2. Modules

Editorial note

Should W3C specs use modules at all? And if not, should we just remove them? (Mail.)

A module is a definition (matching Module) that serves as a container for grouping together related definitions in a single namespace.

module identifier {
  definitions…
};

Definitions have as their enclosing module the module inside which they appear in the IDL. If declared at the outermost scope, a definition has no enclosing module.

The relevant language binding determines how modules affect the naming of constructs that correspond to definitions in the language. If the language supports some form of namespacing mechanism, then a module will correspond to a namespace. The name of that namespace can be based on the module’s prefixed name, which is defined as follows:

In the Java language binding, the name of the Java package is derived by taking the prefixed name and replacing occurrences of “::” with “.” (see section 5.3). It is expected that bindings for other languages that typically use reversed domain names for namespacing will also use the prefixed name of a module to determine namespace names.

The ECMAScript language binding allows a namespacing mechanism based on the scoped name of a module by using the [NamespaceObject] extended attribute.

The following extended attributes are applicable to modules: [NamespaceObject], [Prefix].

[4]Module"module" identifier "{" Definitions "}" ";"
Example

The following IDL fragment illustrates how related interfaces can be grouped together in modules:

IDL
module gfx {

  module geom {
    interface Shape { /* ... */ };
    interface Rectangle : Shape { /* ... */ };
    interface Path : Shape { /* ... */ };
  };

  interface GraphicsContext {
    void fillShape(in geom::Shape s);
    void strokeShape(in geom::Shape s);
  };
};

module gui {

  interface Widget { /* ... */ };

  interface Window : Widget {
    gfx::GraphicsContext getGraphicsContext();
  };

  interface Button : Widget { /* ... */ };
};

3.3. Interfaces

An interface is a definition (matching Interface) that defines an interface that objects in the system can implement.

interface identifier {
  interface-members…
};

An interface is a specification of a set of interface members (matching InterfaceMembers), which are the constants, attributes and operations that appear between the braces in the interface declaration. Objects implementing the interface will have members that correspond to each of the interface’s members.

An interface can be defined to inherit from another interface. If the identifier of the interface is followed by a U+003A COLON (":") character and a scoped name, then that scoped name identifies the inherited interface. The scoped name MUST resolve to a a different interface. An object that implements an interface that inherits from another also implements that inherited interface. The object therefore will also have members that correspond to the interface members from the inherited interface.

interface identifier : scoped-name-of-inherited-interface {
  interface-members…
};

The inherited interfaces of a given interface A is the set of all interfaces that A inherits from, directly or indirectly. If A does not inherit from another interface, then the set is empty. Otherwise, the set includes the interface B that A inherits from and all of B’s inherited interfaces.

An interface MUST NOT be declared such that its inheritance hierarchy has a cycle. That is, an interface A cannot inherit from itself, nor can it inherit from another interface B that inherits from A, and so on.

Note that general multiple inheritance of interfaces is not supported, and objects also cannot implement arbitrary sets of interfaces. Objects can be defined to implement a single given interface A, which means that it also implements all of A’s inherited interfaces. In addition, an implements statement can be used to define that objects implementing ane interface will always also implement another interface.

Each interface member can be preceded by a list of extended attributes (matching ExtendedAttributeList), which can control how the interface member will be handled in language bindings.

interface identifier {

  [extended-attributes]
  const type identifier = value;

  [extended-attributes]
  attribute type identifier;

  [extended-attributes]
  return-type identifier(arguments…);
};

The IDL for interfaces can be split into multiple parts by using partial interface definitions (matching PartialInterface). The identifier of a partial interface definition MUST be the same as the identifier of an interface definition in the same module. All of the members that appear on the partial interface are considered to be members of the interface itself.

interface SomeInterface {
  interface-members…
};

partial interface SomeInterface {
  interface-members…
};
Note

Partial interface definitions are intended for use as a specification editorial aide, allowing the definition of an interface to be separated over more than one section of the document, and sometimes multiple documents.

The relevant language binding determines how interfaces correspond to constructs in the language. Many object-oriented languages support interfaces, in which case the mapping of IDL interfaces to language interfaces is simple.

The following extended attributes are applicable to interfaces: [Callback], [CopyInheritedPrototype], [Constructor], [NamedConstructor], [NoInterfaceObject], [OverrideBuiltins], [ReplaceableNamedProperties].

[5]Interface"interface" identifier Inheritance "{" InterfaceMembers "}" ";"
[6]PartialInterface"partial" "interface" identifier "{" InterfaceMembers "}" ";"
[7]Inheritance":" ScopedName
 | ε
[8]InterfaceMembersExtendedAttributeList InterfaceMember InterfaceMembers
 | ε
[9]InterfaceMemberConst
 | AttributeOrOperation
[63]ScopedNameListScopedName ScopedNames
[64]ScopedNames"," ScopedName ScopedNames
 | ε
Example

The following IDL fragment demonstrates the definition of two mutually referential interfaces. Both Human and Dog inherit from Animal. Objects that implement either of those two interfaces will thus have a name attribute.

IDL
interface Animal {
  attribute DOMString name;
};

interface Human : Animal {
  attribute Dog pet;
};

interface Dog : Animal {
  attribute Human owner;
};

3.3.1. Constants

A constant is a declaration (matching Const) used to bind a constant value to a name. Constants can appear on interfaces and exceptions.

const type identifier = value;

The identifier of a constant MUST NOT be the same as the identifier of another interface member defined on the same interface or another exception member defined on the same exception.

The ConstExpr part of a constant declaration (or dictionary member declaration) gives the value of the constant (or the default value of the dictionary member), which can be one of the two boolean literal tokens (true and false), the null token, an integer token, a float token or a string token.

The value of the boolean literal tokens true and false are the IDL boolean values true and false.

The value of an integer token is an integer, parsed in a manner common to many programming languages, as follows:

  1. Let S be the string value of the integer token.
  2. Let sign be −1 if S begins with U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS ("-"), and 1 otherwise.
  3. Let base be the base of the number based on the characters that follow the optional leading U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS ("-") character:
    U+0030 DIGIT ZERO ("0"), U+0058 LATIN CAPTIAL LETTER X ("X")
    U+0030 DIGIT ZERO ("0"), U+0058 LATIN SMALL LETTER X ("X")
    The base is 16.
    U+0030 DIGIT ZERO ("0")
    The base is 8.
    Otherwise
    The base is 10.
  4. Let number be the result of interpreting all remaining characters following the optional leading U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS ("-") character and any characters indicating the base as an integer specified in base base.
  5. Return sign × number.

The type of an integer token is the same as the type of the constant or dictionary member it is being used as the value of. The value of the integer token MUST NOT lie outside the valid range of values for its type, as given in section 3.9 below.

The value of a float token is either an IEEE 754 single-precision floating point number or an IEEE 754 double-precision floating point number, depending on the type of the constant or dictionary member it is being used as the value for, determined as follows:

  1. Let S be the string value of the float token.
  2. Let value be the Mathematical Value that would be obtained if S were parsed as an ECMAScript NumericLiteral ([ECMA-262], section 7.8.3).
  3. If the float token is being used as the value for a float, then the value of the float token is the IEEE 754 single-precision floating point number closest to result. Otherwise, the float token is being used as the value for a double, and the value of the float token is the IEEE 754 double-precision floating point number closest to result. [IEEE-754]

It is not possible to specify an infinite or Not-a-Number float constant or dictionary member default value.

The type of a float token is the same as the type of the constant or dictionary member it is being used as the value of. The value of the float token MUST NOT lie outside the valid range of values for its type, as given in section 3.9 below.

The value of a string token is a DOMString, determined as follows:

  1. Let S be the string value of the string token with its leading and trailing U+0022 QUOTATION MARK ('"') characters removed.
  2. The value of the string token is the sequence of 16 bit unsigned integer code units corresponding to the UTF-16 encoding of S.

The value of the null token is the special null value that is a member of the nullable types. The type of the null token is the same as the type of the constant or dictionary member it is being used as the value of.

If VT is the type of the value assigned to a constant, and DT is the type of the constant or dictionary member itself, then these types MUST be compatible, which is the case if DT and VT are identical, or DT is a nullable type whose inner type is VT.

No extended attributes are applicable to constants.

[18]Const"const" ConstType identifier "=" ConstExpr ";"
[19]ConstExprBooleanLiteral
 | integer
 | float
 | string
 | "null"
[20]BooleanLiteral"true"
 | "false"
Example

The following IDL fragment demonstrates how constants of the above types can be defined.

IDL
interface Util {
  const boolean DEBUG = false;
  const octet LF = 10;
  const unsigned long BIT_MASK = 0x0000fc00;
  const float AVOGADRO = 6.022e23;
};

exception Error {
  const short ERR_UNKNOWN = 0;
  const short ERR_OUT_OF_MEMORY = 1;

  short errorCode;
};

3.3.2. Attributes

An attribute is an interface member (matching "stringifier" Attribute or Attribute) that is used to declare that objects implementing the interface will have an attribute with the given identifier whose value can be retrieved and (in some cases) changed.

attribute type identifier;

The identifier of an attribute MUST NOT be the same as the identifier of another interface member defined on the same interface.

The type of the attribute is given by the type (matching AttributeType) that appears after the attribute keyword. This allows for any type except sequence types. If the AttributeType is a scoped name, then it MUST resolve to an interface or typedef.

The attribute is read only if the readonly keyword is used before the attribute keyword. An object that implements the interface on which a read only attribute is defined will not allow assignment to that attribute. It is language binding specific whether assignment is simply disallowed by the language, ignored or an exception is thrown.

readonly attribute type identifier;

An attribute that is not read only can be declared to inherit its getter from an ancestor interface. This can be used to make a read only attribute in an ancestor interface be writable on a derived interface. An attribute inherits its getter if its declaration includes inherits getter after the attribute’s identifier. The read only attribute from which the attribute inherits its getter is the attribute with the same identifier on the closest ancestor interface of the one on which the inheriting attribute is defined. The attribute whose getter is being inherited MUST be of the same type as the inheriting attribute, and inherits getter MUST NOT appear on a read only attribute.

interface Ancestor {
  readonly attribute TheType theIdentifier;
};

interface Derived : Ancestor {
  attribute TheType theIdentifier inherits getter;
};

The GetRaises and SetRaises clauses are used to declare the possible exceptions that can be thrown when retrieving the value of and assigning a value to the attribute, respectively. Each scoped name in the GetRaises and SetRaises clauses MUST resolve to an exception.

attribute type identifier getraises(scoped-name, );
attribute type identifier setraises(scoped-name, );
attribute type identifier getraises(scoped-name, ) setraises(scoped-name, );
attribute type identifier inherits getter setraises(scoped-name, );

When the stringifier keyword is used in an attribute declaration, it indicates that objects implementing the interface will be stringified to the value of the attribute. See section 3.3.4.2 below for details.

stringifier attribute DOMString identifier;

If an implementation attempts to get or set the value of an attribute on an object implemented by user code (for example, when a callback object has been supplied to the implementation), and that attempt results in an exception being thrown, then, unless otherwise specified, that exception will be propagated to the user code that caused the implementation to access the attribute. Similarly, if a value returned from getting the attribute cannot be converted to an IDL type, then any exception resulting from this will also be propagated to the user code that resulted in the implementation attempting to get the value of the attribute.

The following extended attributes are applicable to attributes: [Clamp], [PutForwards], [Replaceable], [TreatNullAs], [TreatUndefinedAs], [Unforgeable].

[21]AttributeOrOperation"stringifier" StringifierAttributeOrOperation
 | Attribute
 | Operation
[22]StringifierAttributeOrOperationAttribute
 | OperationRest
 | ";"
[23]AttributeReadOnly "attribute" AttributeType identifier Get SetRaises ";"
[24]ReadOnly"readonly"
 | ε
[25]GetInheritsGetter
 | GetRaises
 | ε
[26]InheritsGetter"inherits" "getter"
[27]GetRaises"getraises" ExceptionList
[28]SetRaises"setraises" ExceptionList
 | ε
[36]ExceptionList"(" ScopedNameList ")"
Example

The following IDL fragment demonstrates how attributes can be declared on an interface:

IDL
exception InvalidName {
  DOMString reason;
};

exception NoSuchPet { };

interface Animal {

  // A simple attribute that can be set to any string value.
  readonly attribute DOMString name;
};

interface Person : Animal {

  // An attribute whose value cannot be assigned to.
  readonly attribute unsigned short age;

  // An attribute that can raise an exception if it is set to an invalid value.
  // Its getter behavior is inherited from Animal, and need not be specified
  // in the description of Person.
  attribute DOMString name inherits getter setraises (InvalidName);

  // An attribute whose value cannot be assigned to, and which can raise an
  // exception in some circumstances.
  readonly attribute DOMString petName getraises (NoSuchPet);
};

3.3.3. Operations

An operation is an interface member (matching "stringifier" OperationRest or Operation) that defines a behavior that can be invoked on objects implementing the interface. There are three kinds of operation:

  1. regular operations, which are those used to declare that objects implementing the interface will have a method with the given identifier
    return-type identifier(arguments…);
  2. special operations, which are used to declare special behavior on objects implementing the interface, such as object indexing and stringification
    special-keywords… return-type identifier(arguments…);
    special-keywords… return-type (arguments…);
  3. static operations, which are used to declare operations that are not associated with a particular object implementing the interface
    static return-type identifier(arguments…);

If an operation has an identifier but no static keyword, then it declares a regular operation. If the operation has one or more special keywords used in its declaration (that is, any keyword matching Special, or the stringifier keyword), then it declares a special operation. A single operation can declare both a regular operation and a special operation; see section 3.3.4 below for details on special operations.

If an operation has no identifier, then it MUST be declared to be a special operation using one of the special keywords.

The identifier of a regular operation or static operation MUST NOT be the same as the identifier of a constant or attribute defined on the same interface.

Note

The identifier can be the same as that of another operation on the interface, however. This is how operation overloading is specified.

The return type of the operation is given by the type (matching ReturnType) that appears before the operation’s optional identifier. A return type of void indicates that the operation returns no value. If the return type is a scoped name, then it MUST resolve to an interface, dictionary or typedef.

An operation’s arguments (matching ArgumentList) are given between the parentheses in the declaration. Each individual argument is specified as a type (matching Type) followed by an identifier (given by an identifier token). If the Type is a scoped name, then it MUST resolve to an interface, dictionary or typedef.

return-type identifier(in type identifier, in type identifier, …);

Each argument can be preceded by a list of extended attributes (matching ExtendedAttributeList), which can control how a value passed as the argument will be handled in language bindings.

return-type identifier([extended-attributes] in type identifier, [extended-attributes] in type identifier, …);

The in keyword used in the declaration of each argument is optional. No other types of arguments (such as out or in-out arguments) can be specified with Web IDL.

Example

The following IDL fragment demonstrates how regular operations can be declared on an interface:

IDL
interface Dimensions {
  attribute unsigned long width;
  attribute unsigned long height;
};

exception NoPointerDevice { };

interface Button {

  // An operation that takes no arguments, returns a boolean, and could possibly
  // raise an exception.
  boolean isMouseOver() raises (NoPointerDevice);

  // Overloaded operations.
  void setDimensions(in Dimensions size);
  void setDimensions(in unsigned long width, in unsigned long height);
};

An operation is considered to be a variadic operation if the final argument uses the ... token just after the argument type. Declaring an operation to be variadic indicates that the operation can be invoked with any number of arguments after that final argument. Those extra implied formal arguments are of the same type as the final explicit argument in the operation declaration. The final argument can also be omitted when invoking the operation. An argument MUST NOT be declared with the ... token unless it is the final argument in the operation’s argument list.

return-type identifier(in type... identifier);
return-type identifier(in type identifier, in type... identifier);
Example

The following IDL fragment defines an interface that has two variadic operations:

IDL
interface IntegerSet {
  readonly attribute unsigned long cardinality;

  void union(in long... ints);
  void intersection(in long... ints);
};

In the ECMAScript binding, variadic operations are implemented by functions that can accept the subsequent arguments:

ECMAScript
var s = getIntegerSet();  // Obtain an instance of IntegerSet.

s.union();                // Passing no arguments corresponding to 'ints'.
s.union(1, 4, 7);         // Passing three arguments corresponding to 'ints'.

A binding for a language that does not support variadic functions might specify that an explicit array or list of integers be passed to such an operation.

An argument is considered to be an optional argument if it is declared with the optional keyword. The final argument of a variadic operation is also considered to be an optional argument. Declaring an argument to be optional indicates that an the argument value can be omitted when the operation is invoked. An argument MUST NOT be declared to be optional unless any subsequent arguments to the operation are also optional.

return-type identifier(in type identifier, in optional type identifier);
Example

The following IDL fragment defines an interface with a single operation that can be invoked with two different argument list lengths:

IDL
interface ColorCreator {
  object createColor(in float v1, in float v2, in float v3, in optional float alpha);
};

It is equivalent to an interface that has two overloaded operations:

IDL
interface ColorCreator {

  object createColor(in float v1, in float v2, in float v3);
  object createColor(in float v1, in float v2, in float v3, in float alpha);
};

A raises clause (matching Raises) is used to declare the possible exceptions that can be thrown when invoking the operation. Each scoped name in the Raises clause MUST resolve to an exception.

return-type identifier(arguments…) raises(scoped-name, …);

If an implementation attempts to invoke an operation on an object implemented by user code (for example, when a callback object has been supplied to the implementation), and that attempt results in an exception being thrown, then, unless otherwise specified, that exception will be propagated to the user code that caused the implementation to access the attribute. Similarly, if a value returned from invoking the operation cannot be converted to an IDL type, then any exception resulting from this will also be propagated to the user code that resulted in the implementation attempting to invoke the operation.

The following extended attributes are applicable to operations: [TreatNullAs], [TreatUndefinedAs].

The following extended attributes are applicable to operation arguments: [AllowAny], [Clamp], [TreatNullAs], [TreatUndefinedAs].

[29]OperationQualifiers OperationRest
[30]Qualifiers"static"
 | "omittable" Specials
 | Specials
[31]SpecialsSpecial Specials
 | ε
[32]Special"getter"
 | "setter"
 | "creator"
 | "deleter"
 | "caller"
[33]OperationRestReturnType OptionalIdentifier "(" ArgumentList ")" Raises ";"
[34]OptionalIdentifieridentifier
 | ε
[35]Raises"raises" ExceptionList
 | ε
[37]ArgumentListArgument Arguments
 | ε
[38]Arguments"," Argument Arguments
 | ε
[39]ArgumentExtendedAttributeList In Optional Type Ellipsis identifier
[40]In"in"
 | ε
[41]Optional"optional"
 | ε
[42]Ellipsis"..."
 | ε
[62]ReturnTypeType
 | "void"

3.3.4. Special operations

A special operation is a declaration of a certain kind of special behavior on objects implementing the interface on which the special operation declarations appear. Special operations are declared by using one or more special keywords keywords in an operation declaration.

There are six kinds of special operations. The table below indicates for a given kind of special operation what special keyword is used to declare it and what the purpose of the special operation is:

Special operation Keyword Purpose
Getters getter Defines behavior for when an object is indexed for property retrieval.
Setters setter Defines behavior for when an object is indexed for property assignment.
Creators creator Defines behavior for when an object is indexed for property creation.
Deleters deleter Defines behavior for when an object is indexed for property deletion.
Callers caller Defines behavior for when an object is called as if it were a function.
Stringifiers stringifier Defines how an object is converted into a DOMString.

Not all language bindings support all of the six kinds of special object behavior. When special operations are declared using operations with no identifier, then in language bindings that do not support the particular kind of special operations there simply will not be such functionality.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines an interface with a getter and a setter:

IDL
interface Dictionary {
  readonly attribute unsigned long propertyCount;

  getter float (in DOMString propertyName);
  setter void (in DOMString propertyName, in float propertyValue);
};

In language bindings that do not support property getters and setters, objects implementing Dictionary will not have that special behavior. For example, in the Java language binding, the corresponding Java interface will have only a single method, long getPropertyCount().

Special operations can be declared using an operation that has an identifier and the omittable keyword to indicate that in language bindings that do not support that kind of special operation, the regular operation is to be available on the object for use instead. Such operations are known as omittable.

Example

The following IDL fragment declares special operations with identifiers and using the omittable keyword:

IDL
interface Dictionary {
  readonly attribute unsigned long propertyCount;

  omittable getter float getProperty(in DOMString propertyName);
  omittable setter void setProperty(in DOMString propertyName, in float propertyValue);
};

In language bindings that do not support property getters and setters, such as Java, objects implementing Dictionary will have getProperty and setProperty operations available. The corresponding Java interface would be:

Java
public interface Dictionary {

  long getPropertyCount();
  float getProperty(String propertyName);
  void setProperty(String propertyName, float propertyValue);
}

These operations will be omitted in language bindings that do support property getters and setters, such as ECMAScript, however.

ECMAScript
var dictionary = getDictionary();  // Get an instance of Dictionary.

dictionary.getProperty;            // Actually invokes the property getter with property name "getProperty".
dictionary.x = 1;                  // Invokes the property setter with property name "x" and value 1.

Defining a special operation without using the omittable keyword on an operation but giving the operation an identifier is equivalent to separating the special operation out into its own declaration without an identifier. This approach is admitted to simplify prose descriptions of an interface’s operations.

Example

The following two interfaces are equivalent:

IDL
interface Dictionary {
  readonly attribute unsigned long propertyCount;

  getter float getProperty(in DOMString propertyName);
  setter void setProperty(in DOMString propertyName, in float propertyValue);
};
IDL
interface Dictionary {
  readonly attribute unsigned long propertyCount;

  float getProperty(in DOMString propertyName);
  void setProperty(in DOMString propertyName, in float propertyValue);

  getter float (in DOMString propertyName);
  setter void (in DOMString propertyName, in float propertyValue);
};

The omittable keyword MUST NOT appear on an operation that has no identifier.

A given special keyword MUST NOT appear twice on an operation.

Getters, setters, creators and deleters come in two varieties: ones that take a DOMString as a property name, known as name getters, name setters, name creators and name deleters, and ones that take an unsigned long as a property index, known as index getters, index setters, index creators and index deleters. See section 3.3.4.3 and section 3.3.4.4 for details.

On a given interface, there MUST exist at most one stringifier and at most one of each variety of getter, setter, creator and deleter. Multiple callers can exist on an interface to specify overloaded calling behavior.

Special operations declared using operations MUST NOT be variadic nor have any optional arguments.

If an object implements more than one interface that defines a given special operation, then it is undefined which (if any) special operation is invoked.

3.3.4.1. Callers

When an interface has one or more callers, it indicates that objects that implement the interface can be called as if they were functions. As mentioned above, callers can be specified using an operation declared with the caller keyword.

caller return-type identifier(arguments…);
caller return-type (arguments…);
omittable caller return-type identifier(arguments…);

If multiple callers are specified on an interface, overload resolution is used to determine which caller is invoked when the object is called as if it were a function.

Specifications SHOULD NOT use callers unless required to specify the behavior of legacy APIs.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines an interface with a caller.

IDL
interface NumberQuadrupler {
  // This operation simply returns four times the given number x.
  caller float compute(in float x);
};

An ECMAScript implementation supporting this interface would allow a platform object that implements NumberQuadrupler to be called as a function:

ECMAScript
var f = getNumberQuadrupler();  // Obtain an instance of NumberQuadrupler.

f.compute(3);                   // This evaluates to 12.
f(3);                           // This also evaluates to 12.
3.3.4.2. Stringifiers

When an interface has a stringifier, it indicates that objects that implement the interface have a non-default conversion to a string. As mentioned above, stringifiers can be specified using an operation declared with the stringifier keyword.

stringifier DOMString identifier();
stringifier DOMString ();
omittable stringifier DOMString identifier();

If an operation used to declare a stringifier does not have an identifier, then prose accompanying the interface MUST define the stringification behavior of the interface. If the operation does have an identifier, then the object is converted to a string by invoking the operation to obtain the string.

Stringifiers declared with operations MUST be declared to take zero arguments and return a DOMString.

As a shorthand, if the stringifier keyword is declared using an operation with no identifier, then the operation’s return type and argument list can be omitted.

stringifier;
Example

The following two interfaces are equivalent:

IDL
interface A {
  stringifier DOMString ();
};
IDL
interface A {
  stringifier;
};

The stringifier keyword can also be placed on an attribute. In this case, the string to convert the object to is the value of the attribute. The stringifier keyword MUST NOT be placed on an attribute unless it is declared to be of type DOMString.

stringifier attribute DOMString identifier;
Example

The following IDL fragment defines an interface that will stringify to the value of its name attribute:

IDL
[Constructor]
interface Student {
  attribute unsigned long id;
  stringifier attribute DOMString name;
};

In the ECMAScript binding, using a Student object in a context where a string is expected will result in the value of the object’s name property being used:

ECMAScript
var s = new Student();
s.id = 12345678;
s.name = '周杰倫';

var greeting = 'Hello, ' + s + '!';  // Now greeting == 'Hello, 周杰倫!'.

The following IDL fragment defines an interface that has custom stringification behavior that is not specified in the IDL itself.

IDL
[Constructor]
interface Student {
  attribute unsigned long id;
  attribute DOMString? familyName;
  attribute DOMString givenName;

  stringifier DOMString ();
};

Thus, prose is required to explain the stringification behavior, such as the following paragraph:

Objects that implement the Student interface must stringify as follows. If the value of the familyName attribute is null, the stringification of the object is the value of the givenName attribute. Otherwise, if the value of the familyName attribute is not null, the stringification of the object is the concatenation of the the value of the givenName attribute, the string " " and the value of the familyName attribute.

An ECMAScript implementation of the IDL would behave as follows:

ECMAScript
var s = new Student();
s.id = 12345679;
s.familyName = 'Smithee';
s.givenName = 'Alan';

var greeting = 'Hi ' + s;  // Now greeting == 'Hi Alan Smithee'.
3.3.4.3. Indexed properties

An interface that defines an index getter, index setter, index creator and/or an index deleter is said to support indexed properties.

If an interface supports indexed properties, then the interface definition MUST be accompanied by a description of what indices the object can be indexed with at any given time. These indices are called the supported property indices.

Index getters and deleters MUST be declared to take a single unsigned long argument. Index setters and creators MUST be declared to take two arguments, where the first is an unsigned long.

getter type identifier(in unsigned long identifier);
setter type identifier(in unsigned long identifier, in type identifier);
creator type identifier(in unsigned long identifier, in type identifier);
deleter type identifier(in unsigned long identifier);

getter type (in unsigned long identifier);
setter type (in unsigned long identifier, in type identifier);
creator type (in unsigned long identifier, in type identifier);
deleter type (in unsigned long identifier);

omittable getter type identifier(in unsigned long identifier);
omittable setter type identifier(in unsigned long identifier, in type identifier);
omittable creator type identifier(in unsigned long identifier, in type identifier);
omittable deleter type identifier(in unsigned long identifier);

The following requirements apply to the definitions of index getters, setters, creators and deleters:

  • If an index getter was specified using an operation with an identifier, then the value returned when indexing the object with a given index is the value that would be returned by invoking the operation, passing the index as its only argument. If the operation used to declare the index getter did not have an identifier, then the interface definition must be accompanied by a description of how to determine the value of an indexed property for a given index.
  • If an index setter was specified using an operation with an identifier, then the behavior that occurs when indexing the object for property assignment with a given property index and value is the same as if the operation is invoked, passing the index as the first argument and the value as the second argument. If the operation used to declare the index setter did not have an identifier, then the interface definition must be accompanied by a description of how to set the value of an existing indexed property for a given property index and value.
  • If an index creator was specified using an operation with an identifier, then the behavior that occurs when indexing the object for property creation with a given property index and value is the same as if the operation is invoked, passing the index as the first argument and the value as the second argument. If the operation used to declare the index creator did not have an identifier, then the interface definition must be accompanied by a description of how to set the value of a new indexed property for a given property index and value.
  • If an index deleter was specified using an operation with an identifier, then the behavior that occurs when indexing the object for property deletion with a given property index is the same as if the operation is invoked, passing the index as the only argument. If the operation used to declare the index deleter did not have an identifier, then the interface definition must be accompanied by a description of how to delete an existing indexed property for a given property index.
Example

The following IDL fragment defines an interface OrderedMap which allows retrieving and setting values by name or by index number:

IDL
interface OrderedMap {
  readonly attribute unsigned long size;

  getter any getByIndex(in unsigned long index);
  setter void setByIndex(in unsigned long index, in any value);
  deleter void removeByIndex(in unsigned long index);

  getter any get(in DOMString name);
  setter creator void set(in DOMString name, in any value);
  deleter void remove(in DOMString name);
};

Since all of the special operations are declared using operations with identifiers, the only additional prose that is necessary is that which describes what keys those sets have. Assuming that the get() operation is defined to return null if an attempt is made to look up a non-existing entry in the OrderedMap, then the following two sentences would suffice:

Objects implementing OrderedMap support indexed properties with indices in the range 0 ≤ index < OrderedMap::length.

Such objects also support a named property for every name that, if passed to get(), would return a non-null value.

As described in section section 4.7, an ECMAScript implementation would create properties on a platform object implementing OrderedMap that correspond to entries in both the named and indexed property sets. These properties can then be used to interact with the object in the same way as invoking the object’s methods, as demonstrated below:

ECMAScript
// Assume map is a platform object implementing the OrderedMap interface.
var map = getOrderedMap();
var x, y;

x = map[0];       // If map.length > 0, then this is equivalent to:
                  //
                  //   x = map.getByIndex(0)
                  //
                  // since a property named "0" will have been placed on map.
                  // Otherwise, x will be set to undefined, since there will be
                  // no property named "0" on map.

map[1] = false;   // If map.length > 1, then this will set the property named
                  // "1" on map to false, and then will do the equivalent of:
                  //
                  //   map.setByIndex(1, false)
                  //
                  // Otherwise, if map.length ≤ 1, then it will set the
                  // property but have no other effect (since an index creator
                  // was not specified).

y = map.apple;    // If there exists a named property named "apple", then this
                  // will be equivalent to:
                  //
                  //   y = map.get('apple')
                  //
                  // since a property named "apple" will have been placed on
                  // map.  Otherwise, y will be set to undefined, since there
                  // will be no property named "apple" on map.

map.berry = 123;  // Regardless of whether there exists a named property named
                  // "berry", this will set the "berry" property to 123, and
                  // then do the equivalent of:
                  //
                  //   map.set('berry', 123)

delete map.cake;  // If a named property named "cake" exists, then the "cake"
                  // property will be deleted, and then the equivalent to the
                  // following will be performed:
                  //
                  //   map.remove("cake")
3.3.4.4. Named properties

An interface that defines a name getter, name setter, name creator and/or a name deleter is said to support named properties.

If an interface supports named properties, then the interface definition MUST be accompanied by a description of what the ordered set of names the object can be indexed with at any given time is. These names are called the supported property names.

Name getters and deleters MUST be declared to take a single DOMString argument. Index setters and creators MUST be declared to take two arguments, where the first is an DOMString.

getter type identifier(in DOMString identifier);
setter type identifier(in DOMString identifier, in type identifier);
creator type identifier(in DOMString identifier, in type identifier);
deleter type identifier(in DOMString identifier);

getter type (in DOMString identifier);
setter type (in DOMString identifier, in type identifier);
creator type (in DOMString identifier, in type identifier);
deleter type (in DOMString identifier);

omittable getter type identifier(in DOMString identifier);
omittable setter type identifier(in DOMString identifier, in type identifier);
omittable creator type identifier(in DOMString identifier, in type identifier);
omittable deleter type identifier(in DOMString identifier);

The following requirements apply to the definitions of name getters, setters, creators and deleters:

  • If a name getter was specified using an operation with an identifier, then the value returned when indexing the object with a given name is the value that would be returned by invoking the operation, passing the name as its only argument. If the operation used to declare the name getter did not have an identifier, then the interface definition must be accompanied by a description of how to determine the value of a named property for a given property name.
  • If a name setter was specified using an operation with an identifier, then the behavior that occurs when indexing the object for property assignment with a given property name and value is the same as if the operation is invoked, passing the name as the first argument and the value as the second argument. If the operation used to declare the name setter did not have an identifier, then the interface definition must be accompanied by a description of how to set the value of an existing named property for a given property name and value.
  • If a name creator was specified using an operation with an identifier, then the behavior that occurs when indexing the object for property creation with a given property name and value is the same as if the operation is invoked, passing the name as the first argument and the value as the second argument. If the operation used to declare the name creator did not have an identifier, then the interface definition must be accompanied by a description of how to set the value of a new named property for a given property name and value.
  • If a name deleter was specified using an operation with an identifier, then the behavior that occurs when indexing the object for property deletion with a given property name is the same as if the operation is invoked, passing the name as the only argument. If the operation used to declare the name deleter did not have an identifier, then the interface definition must be accompanied by a description of how to delete an existing named property for a given property name.

3.3.5. Static operations

A static operation is one that is not called on a particular instance of the interface on which it is declared, and is instead associated with the interface itself. Static operations are declared by using the static keyword in an operation declaration.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines an interface Circle that has a static operation declared on it:

IDL
interface Point { /* ... */ };

interface Circle {
  attribute float cx;
  attribute float cy;
  attribute float radius;

  static Point triangulate(in Circle c1, in Circle c2, in Circle c3);
};

In the ECMAScript language binding, the Function object for triangulate will exist on the interface object for Circle:

ECMAScript
var circles = getCircles();    // an Array of Circle objects

typeof Circle.triangulate;     // Evaluates to "function"
Circle.prototype.triangulate;  // Evaluates to undefined
circles[0].triangulate;        // Also evaluates to undefined

// Call the static operation
var triangulationPoint = Circle.triangulate(circles[0], circles[1], circles[2]);

In the Java language binding, however, the triangulate method will exist on an abstract class:

Java
Circle[] circles = getCircles();  // an array of Circle objects

// Call the static operation
Point triangulationPoint = CircleUtils.triangulate(circles[0], circles[1], circles[2]);

3.3.6. Overloading

If a regular operation or static operation defined on an interface has an identifier that is the same as the identifier of another operation on that interface of the same kind (regular or static), then the operation is said to be overloaded. When the identifier of an overloaded operation is used to invoke one of the operations on an object that implements the interface, the number and types of the arguments passed to the operation determine which of the overloaded operations is actually invoked. If an interface has multiple callers defined on it, then those callers are also said to be overloaded. In the ECMAScript language binding, constructors can be overloaded too. There are some restrictions on the arguments that overloaded operations, callers and constructors can be specified to take, and in order to describe these restrictions, the notion of an effective overload set is used.

An effective overload set for a given identifier, argument count, interface and target language binding represents the allowable invocations in that language binding of operations or constructors (specified with [Constructor] and [NamedConstructor]) that have the specified identifier on that interface. The set is used to determine whether there are ambiguities in the overloaded operations or constructors specified on the interface. The effective overload set is stated to be “for regular operations”, “for static operations”, “for constructors” or “for callers”, to distinguish between these four uses. Effective overload sets for callers do not use an identifier; only an argument count, interface and target language binding are needed.

The elements of an effective overload set are triples of the form <ftypesany>. If the effective overload set is for regular operations, static operations or callers, then f is an operation, and if it is for constructors, then f is an extended attribute. In either case, types is a list of IDL types and any is a list of boolean values. Each triple represents an allowable invocation of the operation, constructor or caller with an argument value list of the given types. any specifies whether a particular argument has been annotated with the [AllowAny] extended attribute. Due to the use of optional arguments and variadic operations and constructors, there may be multiple entries in an effective overload set identifying the same operation or constructor.

The effective overload set for identifier A, argument count N, interface I and a given target language binding is derived as follows. Whenever an argument of an extended attribute is mentioned, it is referring to an argument of the extended attribute’s named argument list.

  1. Initialize S to ∅.
  2. Let F be a set with elements as follows, according to the kind of effective overload set:
    For regular operations
    The elements of F are the regular operations with identifier A defined on interface I.
    For static operations
    The elements of F are the static operations with identifier A defined on interface I.
    For constructors
    The elements of F are the [NamedConstructor] extended attributes on interface I whose named argument lists’ identifiers are A. If A is the same as the identifier of interface I, then F also includes the [Constructor] extended attributes on I.
    For callers
    The elements of F are the callers defined on interface I.
  3. If the effective overload set is for regular operations, then:
    1. If the target language binding supports object indexing, then remove from F any operation that is declared to be an omittable getter, setter, creator or deleter.
    2. If the target language binding supports object calling, then remove from F any operation that is declared to be an omittable caller.
    3. If the target language binding supports object stringification, then remove from F any operation that is declared to be an omittable stringifier.
  4. Let maxarg be the maximum number of arguments the operations or constructor extended attributes in F are declared to take.
  5. Let m be the maximum of maxarg and N.
  6. For each operation or extended attribute X in F:
    1. Let n be the number of arguments X is declared to take.
    2. Let t0..n−1 be the types of the arguments X is defined to take.
    3. Let a0..n−1 be boolean values indicating whether each argument X is defined to take is declared with the [AllowAny] extended attribute.
    4. Add to S the triple <Xt0..n−1a0..n−1>.
    5. If n > 0 and X is declared to be variadic, then:
      1. Add to S the triple <Xt0..n−2a0..n−2>.
      2. For every integer i, such that n ≤ i ≤ m−1:
        1. Let u0..i be a list of types, where uj = tj (for j < n) and uj = tn−1 (for j ≥ n).
        2. Let b0..i be a list of booleans, where bj = aj (for j < n) and bj = an−1 (for j ≥ n).
        3. Add to S the triple <Xu0..ib0..i>.
    6. For every integer i, such that 0 < i < n:
      1. If argument i of X is optional, then add to S the triple <Xt0..i−1a0..i−1>.
    7. If n > 0 and the first argument of X is optional, then add to S the triple <X, (), ()> (where “()” represents the empty list).
  7. The effective overload set for identifier A and interface X is S.

For each pair of entries in an effective overload set at least one of the following MUST be true:

  • the type list lengths of the two entries are different, or
  • there is an index i such that the types in the two type lists at index i are distinguishable.

Two types are distinguishable if there is a “●” mark in the corresponding entry in the following table:

primitive primitive? DOMString DOMString? interface interface? object object? sequence<T> sequence<T>? T[] T[]? Date Date?
primitive
primitive?
DOMString
DOMString?
interface [1] [1]
interface? [1]
object
object?
sequence<T>
sequence<T>?
T[]
T[]?
Date
Date?
Note

These restrictions on argument types reduce the possibility of resolution ambiguity in overloaded operations and constructors, but do not completely eliminate it. In the ECMAScript language binding, the restrictions still can result in overloaded operation and constructor invocations that cannot be distinguished solely based on the values passed to the corresponding function. For example, with the following interfaces:

IDL
interface A {
  // ...
};

interface B {
  // ...
};

interface C {
  void f(in A? x);
  void f(in B? x);
};

it is possible to pass an object that implements both A and B to f. Similarly, passing null to f would also be ambiguous. Since the ECMAScript language binding provides no way to disambiguate such calls, the interface description will need to describe which operation is invoked in these cases. (It is acceptable not to describe this if there is no observable difference in behavior for a particular choice of operation or constructor to disambiguate the call, or if no object will actually implement the two interfaces, for example.)

Example

For the following interface:

IDL
interface A {
  /* f1 */ void f(in DOMString a);
  /* f2 */ void f([AllowAny] in DOMString a, in DOMString b, in float... c);
  /* f3 */ void f();
  /* f4 */ void f(in long a, in DOMString b, in optional DOMString c, in float... d);
};

the effective overload set for identifier f with argument count 4 (for the ECMAScript language binding) is:

{ <f1, (DOMString), (false)>,
<f2, (DOMString, DOMString), (true, false)>,
<f2, (DOMString, DOMString, float), (true, false, false)>,
<f2, (DOMString, DOMString, float, float), (true, false, false, false)>,
<f3, (), ()>,
<f4, (long, DOMString), (false, false)>,
<f4, (long, DOMString, DOMString), (false, false)>,
<f4, (long, DOMString, DOMString, float), (false, false, false, false)> }

There are thus no overloaded operation resolution ambiguities for the interface.

3.4. Dictionaries

A dictionary is a definition (matching Dictionary) used to define an associative array data type with a fixed, ordered set of key–value pairs, termed dictionary members, where keys are strings and values are of a particular type specified in the definition. The order of the dictionary members is the order in which they appear in the IDL.

dictionary identifier {
  dictionary-members…
};

A dictionary can be defined to inherit from another dictionary. If the identifier of the dictionary is followed by a colon and a scoped name, then that scoped name identifies the inherited dictionary. The scoped name MUST resolve to a different dictionary.

dictionary Base {
  dictionary-members…
};

dictionary Derived : Base {
  dictionary-members…
};

The inherited dictionaries of a given dictionary D is the set of all dictionaries that D inherits from, directly or indirectly. If D does not inherit from another dictionary, then the set is empty. Otherwise, the set includes the dictionary E that D inherits from and all of E’s inherited dictionaries.

A dictionary value of type D can have key–value pairs corresponding to the dictionary members defined on D and on any of D’s inherited dictionaries. On a given dictionary value, the presence of each dictionary member is optional. When specified in the dictionary value, a dictionary member is said to be present, otherwise it is not present. Dictionary members can also optionally have a default value, which is the value the dictionary member is to be considered to have when not present.

Each dictionary member (matching DictionaryMember) is specified as a type (matching Type) followed by an identifier (given by an identifier token following the type). The identifier is the key name of the key–value pair. If the Type is a scoped name, then it MUST resolve to an interface, dictionary or typedef.

dictionary identifier {
  type identifier;
};

If the identifier is followed by a U+003D EQUALS SIGN ("=") and a value (matching ConstExpr), then that gives the dictionary member its default value, in the same way that a constant is given its value.

dictionary identifier {
  type identifier = value;
};

The identifier of a dictionary member MUST NOT be the same as that of another dictionary member defined on the dictionary or on that dictionary’s inherited dictionaries.

Dictionaries MUST NOT be used as the type of an attribute, constant or exception field.

No extended attributes are applicable to dictionaries.

The following extended attributes are applicable to dictionary members: [Clamp].

[10]Dictionary"dictionary" identifier Inheritance "{" DictionaryMembers "}" ";"
[11]DictionaryMembersExtendedAttributeList DictionaryMember DictionaryMembers
 | ε
[12]DictionaryMemberType identifier DefaultValue ";"
[13]DefaultValue"=" ConstExpr
 | ε
Example

One use of dictionary types is to allow a number of optional arguments to an operation without being constrained as to the order they are specified at the call site. For example, consider the following IDL fragment:

IDL
[Constructor]
interface Point {
  attribute float x;
  attribute float y;
};

dictionary PaintOptions {
  DOMString? fillPattern = "black";
  DOMString? strokePattern = null;
  Point position;
};

interface GraphicsContext {
  void drawRectangle(in float width, in float height, in optional PaintOptions options);
};

In an ECMAScript implementation of the IDL, you an Object can be passed in for the optional PaintOptions dictionary:

ECMAScript
// Get an instance of GraphicsContext.
var ctx = getGraphicsContext();

// Draw a rectangle.
ctx.drawRectangle(300, 200, { fillPattern: "red", position: new Point(10, 10) });

Both fillPattern and strokePattern are given default values, so if they are omitted, the definition of drawRectangle can assume that they have the given default values and not include explicit wording to handle their non-presence.

3.5. Exceptions

An exception is a definition (matching Exception) used to declare a type of exception that can be thrown by implementations.

exception identifier {
  exception-members…
};

Exceptions are different from interfaces in that they can have only constants and exception fields declared on them (together known as exception members), rather than the three types of interface members.

An exception can be defined to inherit from another exception. If the identifier of the exception is followed by a U+003A COLON (":") character and a scoped name, then that scoped name identifies the inherited exception. The scoped name MUST resolve to a different exception. An object that implements an exception that inherits from another also implements that inherited exception. The object therefore will also have members that correspond to the exception members from the inherited exception.

exception Base {
  exception-members…
};

exception Derived : Base {
  exception-members…
};

Exceptions have an associated message, a DOMString, which is exposed on an exception object in a language binding-specific manner. Exceptions can be thrown, optionally with a specific message, the behavior of which again is language binding-specific.

Each exception field (matching ExceptionField) is specified as a type (matching Type) followed by an identifier (given by an identifier token following the type). If the Type is a scoped name, then it MUST resolve to an interface or typedef. Exception fields are similar to attributes in that they will correspond to attributes of the same name and type on exception objects that are thrown by implementations.

exception identifier {
  type identifier;
};

The identifier of an exception field MUST NOT be the same as that of another exception member.

Each exception member can be preceded by a list of extended attributes (matching ExtendedAttributeList), which can control how the exception member will be handled in language bindings.

exception identifier {

  [extended-attributes]
  const type identifier = value;

  [extended-attributes]
  type identifier;
};

The following extended attributes are applicable to exceptions: [NoInterfaceObject].

No extended attributes are applicable to exception fields.

[14]Exception"exception" identifier Inheritance "{" ExceptionMembers "}" ";"
[15]ExceptionMembersExtendedAttributeList ExceptionMember ExceptionMembers
 | ε
[43]ExceptionMemberConst
 | ExceptionField
[44]ExceptionFieldAttributeType identifier ";"
Example

The following example demonstrates how a hierarchy of exceptions might be defined for some of the kinds of DOMExceptions that are given in DOM Level 2 Core, which were historically distinguished only by an integer code.

IDL
exception DOMException {
  const unsigned short INDEX_SIZE_ERR = 1;
  const unsigned short DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR = 2;
  const unsigned short HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR = 3;
  ...

  unsigned short code;
};

exception IndexSizeError : DOMException { };
exception DOMStringSizeError : DOMException { };
exception HierarchyRequestError : DOMException { };

In an ECMAScript implementation, the different types of DOMExceptions could be distinguished in a number of different ways:

ECMAScript
try {
  document.appendChild(document);
} catch (e) {
  // The traditional way, by looking at the code.
  if (e.code == DOMException.HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR) {
    ...
  }

  // By looking at the name.
  if (e.name == "HierarchyRequestError") {
    ...
  }

  // By testing with "instanceof".
  if (e instanceof HierarchyRequestError) {
    ...
  }
}

The advantage of looking at the name rather than code is that exception names are much less likely to conflict across specifications. Exception codes do conflict already. For example, if a DOMException or an SVGException could be thrown inside the one try block, authors would need to check both the code and the interface of the exception object to be sure of what kind of exception was thrown.

3.6. Typedefs

A typedef is a definition (matching Typedef) used to declare a new name for a type. This new name is not exposed in language bindings; it is purely used as a shorthand for referencing the type in the IDL.

typedef type identifier;

The type being given a new name is specified after the typedef keyword (matching Type), and the identifier token following the type gives the name.

The Type MUST NOT be a scoped name that resolves to an interface.

No extended attributes are applicable to typedefs.

[16]Typedef"typedef" Type identifier ";"
Example

The following IDL fragment demonstrates the use of typedefs to allow the use of a short identifier instead of a long scoped name or sequence type.

IDL
module gfx {
  module geom {
    module geom2d {

      interface Point {
        attribute float x;
        attribute float y;
      };

      typedef sequence<Point> PointSequence;

      interface Rect {
        attribute Point topleft;
        attribute Point bottomright;
      };
    };
  };
};

module gui {

  typedef gfx::geom::geom2d::Point Point;
  typedef gfx::geom::geom2d::PointSequence PointSequence;
  typedef gfx::geom::geom2d::Rect Rect;

  interface Widget {

    readonly attribute Rect bounds;

    boolean pointWithinBounds(in Point p);
    boolean allPointsWithinBounds(in PointSequence ps);
  };
};

3.7. Implements statements

An implements statement is a definition (matching ImplementsStatement) used to declare that all objects implementing an interface A (identified by the first scoped name) MUST additionally implement interface B (identified by the second scoped name), including all other interfaces that B inherits from.

scoped-name-A implements scoped-name-B;

Transitively, if objects implementing B are declared with an implements statement to additionally implement interface C, then all objects implementing A do additionally implement interface C.

Implements statements can appear on a module or at the outermost scope.

The two scoped names MUST resolve to two different interfaces.

The interface identified on the left-hand side of an implements statement MUST NOT inherit from the interface identifier on the right-hand side, and vice versa.

If each implements statement is considered to be an edge in a directed graph, from a node representing the interface on the left-hand side of the statement to a node representing the interface on the right-hand side, then this graph MUST NOT have any cycles.

Interfaces that a given object implements are partitioned into those that are considered supplemental interfaces and those that are not. An interface A is considered to be a supplemental interface of an object O if:

  • O implements a different interface B, and the IDL states that B implements A; or
  • O implements a different supplemental interface C, and C inherits from A.

The consequential interfaces of an interface A are:

  • each interface B where the IDL states A implements B;
  • each interface that a consequential interface of A inherits from; and
  • each interface D where the IDL states that C implements D, where C is a consequential interface of A.

No extended attributes are applicable to implements statements.

[17]ImplementsStatementScopedName "implements" ScopedName ";"
Example

The following IDL fragment defines two interfaces, stating that one interface is always implemented on objects implementing the other.

IDL
module dom {
  interface Node {
    readonly attribute unsigned short nodeType;
    // ...
  };
};

module events {

  interface EventTarget {
    void addEventListener(in DOMString type,
                          in EventListener listener,
                          in boolean useCapture);
    // ...
  };

  dom::Node implements EventTarget;
};

An ECMAScript implementation would thus have an addEventListener property in the prototype chain of every Node:

ECMAScript
var n = getNode();          // Obtain an instance of Node.
typeof n.addEventListener;  // Evaluates to "function".

Similarly, in Java, any Node object could be cast to EventTarget:

Java
Node n = getNode();               // Obtain an instance of Node.
EventTarget et = (EventTarget) n; // This should never throw ClassCastException.

Note that it is not the case that all EventTarget objects implement Node.

3.8. Objects implementing interfaces

In systems described by IDL fragments, each object that implements one or more interfaces is considered to be either a platform object or a user object. Platform objects are those which are created and supplied by an implementation of those IDL fragments. In a browser, for example, the browser-implemented DOM objects (implementing interfaces such as Node and Document) that provide access to a web page’s contents to ECMAScript running in the page would be platform objects. An ECMAScript library that adds support for some Web API that is not natively supported by a browser would also be considered to expose platform objects. Exception objects too are considered to be platform objects.

On the other hand, user objects are those that authors would create, implementing particular interfaces that the Web APIs use to be able to invoke author-defined operations or to send and receive values to the author’s program through manipulating the object’s attributes. In a web page, an ECMAScript object that implements the EventListener interface, which is used to register a callback that the DOM Events implementation invokes, would be considered to be a user object. There is no way for a user object to represent an exception.

In IDL, the [Callback] extended attribute is used to annotate interfaces that can be implemented as user objects. These interfaces may or may not also be implemented as platform objects.

Only interfaces with the following characteristics can be implemented as user objects:

When a user object is passed to a platform object expecting an object of a particular interface, be it as an argument value in an operation invocation, by assignment to an attribute, or through a dictionary member, and that interface was not declared using the [Callback] extended attribute, then the object will not be considered to be one that implements that interface. Language bindings define precisely how this check is made and what happens in response in such a case (such as throwing an exception).

3.9. Types

This section lists the types supported by the IDL, the set of values each type correspond to, and how constants of that type are represented.

The following types are known as integer types: byte, octet, short, unsigned short, long, unsigned long, long long and unsigned long long.

The following types are known as primitive types: boolean, the integer types, float and double.

The object type and all interface types are known as object types.

Every type has a type name, which is a string, not necessarily unique, that identifies the type. Each sub-section below defines what the type name is for each type.

When conversions are made from language binding specific types to IDL types in order to invoke an operation or assign a value to an attribute, all conversions necessary will be performed before the operation is invoked or the attribute updated. If the conversion cannot be performed, then the operation will not be invoked or the attribute will not be updated. In some language bindings, type conversions could result in an exception being thrown. In such cases, these exceptions will be propagated to the code that made the attempt to invoke the operation or assign to the attribute.

[52]TypeAttributeType
 | "sequence" "<" Type ">" Null
[53]AttributeTypePrimitiveOrStringType TypeSuffix
 | ScopedName TypeSuffix
 | "object" TypeSuffix
 | "Date" TypeSuffix
 | "any" TypeSuffixStartingWithArray
[54]ConstTypePrimitiveOrStringType Null
[55]PrimitiveOrStringTypeUnsignedIntegerType
 | "boolean"
 | "byte"
 | "octet"
 | "float"
 | "double"
 | "DOMString"
[56]UnsignedIntegerType"unsigned" IntegerType
 | IntegerType
[57]IntegerType"short"
 | "long" OptionalLong
[58]OptionalLong"long"
 | ε
[59]TypeSuffix"[" "]" TypeSuffix
 | "?" TypeSuffixStartingWithArray
 | ε
[60]TypeSuffixStartingWithArray"[" "]" TypeSuffix
 | ε
[61]Null"?"
 | ε

3.9.1. any

The any type is the union of all other possible types. Its type name is “Any”.

3.9.2. boolean

The boolean type has two values: true and false.

boolean constant values in IDL are represented with the true and false tokens.

The type name of the boolean type is “Boolean”.

3.9.3. byte

The byte type is a signed integer type that has values in the range [−128, 127].

byte constant values in IDL are represented with integer tokens.

The type name of the byte type is “Byte”.

3.9.4. octet

The octet type is an unsigned integer type that has values in the range [0, 255].

octet constant values in IDL are represented with integer tokens.

The type name of the octet type is “Octet”.

3.9.5. short

The short type is a signed integer type that has values in the range [−32768, 32767].

short constant values in IDL are represented with integer tokens.

The type name of the short type is “Short”.

3.9.6. unsigned short

The unsigned short type is an unsigned integer type that has values in the range [0, 65535].

unsigned short constant values in IDL are represented with integer tokens.

The type name of the unsigned short type is “UnsignedShort”.

3.9.7. long

The long type is a signed integer type that has values in the range [−2147483648, 2147483647].

long constant values in IDL are represented with integer tokens.

The type name of the long type is “Long”.

3.9.8. unsigned long

The unsigned long type is an unsigned integer type that has values in the range [0, 4294967295].

unsigned long constant values in IDL are represented with integer tokens.

The type name of the unsigned long type is “UnsignedLong”.

3.9.9. long long

The long long type is a signed integer type that has values in the range [−9223372036854775808, 9223372036854775807].

long long constant values in IDL are represented with integer tokens.

The type name of the long long type is “LongLong”.

3.9.10. unsigned long long

The unsigned long long type is an unsigned integer type that has values in the range [0, 18446744073709551615].

unsigned long long constant values in IDL are represented with integer tokens.

The type name of the unsigned long long type is “UnsignedLongLong”.

3.9.11. float

The float type is a floating point numeric type that corresponds to the set of possible single-precision 32 bit IEEE 754 floating point numbers. [IEEE-754]

float constant values in IDL are represented with float tokens.

The type name of the float type is “Float”.

3.9.12. double

The double type is a floating point numeric type that corresponds to the set of possible double-precision 64 bit IEEE 754 floating point numbers. [IEEE-754]

double constant values in IDL are represented with float tokens.

The type name of the double type is “Double”.

3.9.13. DOMString

The DOMString type corresponds to the set of all possible sequences of 16 bit unsigned integer code units (to be interpreted as UTF-16 encoded strings [RFC2781]). While DOMString is defined to be an OMG IDL boxed sequence<unsigned short> valuetype in DOM Level 3 Core ([DOM3CORE], section 1.2.1), this document defines DOMString to be an intrinsic type so as to avoid special casing that sequence type in various situations where a string is required.

Note

Note also that null is not a value of type DOMString. To allow null, a nullable DOMString, written as DOMString? in IDL, can be used.

Nothing in this specification requires a DOMString value to be a valid UTF-16 string. For example, a DOMString value might include unmatched surrogate pair characters. Authors of specifications using Web IDL might want to obtain a sequence of Unicode characters given a particular sequence of 16 bit unsigned integer code units, however. The following algorithm defines a way to convert a DOMString to a sequence of Unicode characters:

  1. Let S be the DOMString value.
  2. Let n be the length of S.
  3. Initialize i to 0.
  4. Initialize U to be an empty sequence of Unicode characters.
  5. While i < n:
    1. Let c be the code unit in S at index i.
    2. Depending on the value of c:
      c < 0xD800 or c > 0xDFFF
      Append to U the Unicode character with code point c.
      0xDC00 ≤ c ≤ 0xDFFF
      Append to U a U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER.
      0xD800 ≤ c ≤ 0xDBFF
      1. If i = n−1, then append to U a U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER.
      2. Otherwise, i < n−1:
        1. Let d be the code unit in S at index i+1.
        2. If 0xDC00 ≤ d ≤ 0xDFFF, then:
          1. Let a be c & 0x3FF.
          2. Let b be d & 0x3FF.
          3. Append to U the Unicode character with code point 216+210a+b.
          4. Set i to i+1.
        3. Otherwise, d < 0xDC00 or d > 0xDFFF. Append to U a U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER.
    3. Set i to i+1.
  6. Return U.

The type name of the DOMString type is “String”.

3.9.14. object

The object type corresponds to the set of all possible non-null object references.

There is no way to represent an object constant value in IDL.

To denote a type that includes all possible object references plus the null value, use the nullable type object?.

The type name of the object type is “Object”.

3.9.15. Interface types

A scoped name that resolves to an interface is used to refer to a type that corresponds to the set of all possible non-null references to objects that implement that interface.

There is no way to represent a constant value for interface types in IDL.

To denote a type that includes all possible references to objects implementing the given interface plus the null value, use a nullable type.

The type name of an interface type is the identifier of the interface.

3.9.16. Dictionary types

A scoped name that resolves to a dictionary is used to refer to a type that corresponds to the set of all dictionaries that adhere to the dictionary definition.

There is no way to represent a constant value for dictionary types in IDL.

The type name of a dictionary type is the identifier of the dictionary.

3.9.17. Nullable types — T?

A nullable type is an IDL type constructed from an existing type (called the inner type), which just allows the additional value null to be a member of its set of values. Nullable types are represented in IDL by placing a U+003F QUESTION MARK ("?") character after an existing type. The inner type MUST NOT be any or another nullable type, as they already allow the null value.

Nullable type constant values in IDL are represented in the same way that constant values of their inner type would be represented, or with the null token.

The type name of a nullable type is the concatenation of the type name of the inner type T and the string “OrNull”.

Example

For example, a type that allows the values true, false and null is written as boolean?:

IDL
interface MyConstants {
  const boolean? ARE_WE_THERE_YET = false;
};

The following interface has two attributes: one whose value can be a DOMString or the null value, and another whose value can be a reference to a Node object or the null value:

IDL
interface Node {
  readonly attribute DOMString? namespaceURI;
  readonly attribute Node? parentNode;
  // ...
};

3.9.18. Sequences — sequence<T>

The sequence<T> type is a parameterized type whose values are (possibly zero-length) sequences of values of type T. Sequences are always passed by value. In language bindings where a sequence is represented by an object of some kind, passing a sequence to a user agent implemented object will not result in a reference to the sequence being kept by that object. Similarly, any sequence returned from a user agent implemented object will be a copy and modifications made to it will not be visible to the object.

There is no way to represent a sequence constant value in IDL.

Sequences MUST NOT be used as the type of an attribute, constant or exception field.

Note

This restriction exists so that it is clear to specification writers and API users that sequences are copied rather than having references to them passed around. Instead of a writable attribute of a sequence type, it is suggested that a pair of operations to get and set the sequence is used. Another option is to use an array type, which can be used as the type of an attribute.

The type name of a sequence type is the concatenation of the type name for T and the string “Sequence”.

3.9.19. Arrays — T[]

The T[] type is a parameterized type whose values are non-null references to (possibly zero-length) arrays of values of type T. Unlike sequences, arrays are passed by reference. Passing an array to a platform object could result in that array being modified by the object. An array returned from a platform object might also be modified by the object, and any modifications to the array performed by user code might be acted upon by the platform object.

The element type of an array MUST NOT be a sequence or dictionary type.

Arrays can either be fixed length or variable length. Fixed length arrays cannot have their length changed by user code after they have been created, while variable length arrays can. Unless otherwise specified, arrays are fixed length.

Arrays can also be designated as being read only. User code cannot modify the values of read only array elements. If an array is read only, then it is also implicitly fixed length.

There is no way to represent an array constant value in IDL.

The type name of an array type is the concatenation of the type name for T and the string “Array”.

Example

See section 4.2.20 for an example using array types.

3.9.20. Date

The Date type is a type that represents an instant in time with millisecond accuracy. The instants in time that this type can represent are the same that can be represented with ECMAScript Date objects ([ECMA-262], section 15.9.1.1) – namely, every millisecond in the 200,000,000 days centered around midnight of 1 January, 1970 UTC, except for any millisecond that is part of an inserted leap seconds, which cannot be represented with this type.

An additional value that this type can represent is one that indicates an indeterminate or undefined time, which we write as undefined.

There is no way to represent a Date constant value in IDL.

The type name of the Date type is “Date”.

3.10. Extended attributes

An extended attribute is an annotation that can appear on definitions, interface members, exception members, dictionary members, and operation arguments, and is used to control how language bindings will handle those constructs. Extended attributes are specified with an ExtendedAttributeList, which is a square bracket enclosed, comma separated list of ExtendedAttributes.

The ExtendedAttribute grammar symbol matches nearly any sequence of tokens, however the extended attributes defined in this document only accept a more restricted syntax. Any extended attribute encountered in an IDL fragment is matched against the following five grammar symbols to determine what form (or forms) it is in:

Grammar symbol Form Example
ExtendedAttributeNoArg takes no argument [Replaceable]
ExtendedAttributeArgList takes an argument list [Constructor(in float x, in float y)]
ExtendedAttributeNamedArgList takes a named argument list [NamedConstructor=Image(in DOMString src)]
ExtendedAttributeIdent takes an identifier [PutForwards=name]
ExtendedAttributeScopedName takes a scoped name [Prefix=org::example]

This specification defines a number of extended attributes that are applicable to all language bindings, which are described in the sub-sections below. In addition, ECMAScript language binding specific extended attributes are defined in section 4.3. Each extended attribute definition will state which of the above five forms are allowed. Although ExtendedAttributeIdent and ExtendedAttributeScopedName are ambiguous, no extended attribute defined in this document can take both of those forms.

[45]ExtendedAttributeList"[" ExtendedAttribute ExtendedAttributes "]"
 | ε
[46]ExtendedAttributes"," ExtendedAttribute ExtendedAttributes
 | ε
[47]ExtendedAttribute "(" ExtendedAttributeInner ")" ExtendedAttributeRest
 | "[" ExtendedAttributeInner "]" ExtendedAttributeRest
 | "{" ExtendedAttributeInner "}" ExtendedAttributeRest
 | Other ExtendedAttributeRest
[48]ExtendedAttributeRestExtendedAttribute
 | ε
[49]ExtendedAttributeInner "(" ExtendedAttributeInner ")" ExtendedAttributeInner
 | "[" ExtendedAttributeInner "]" ExtendedAttributeInner
 | "{" ExtendedAttributeInner "}" ExtendedAttributeInner
 | OtherOrComma ExtendedAttributeInner
 | ε
[50]Other integer
 | float
 | identifier
 | string
 | other
 | "..."
 | ":"
 | "::"
 | ";"
 | "<"
 | "="
 | ">"
 | "?"
 | "Date"
 | "DOMString"
 | "any"
 | "attribute"
 | "boolean"
 | "byte"
 | "caller"
 | "const"
 | "creator"
 | "deleter"
 | "double"
 | "exception"
 | "false"
 | "float"
 | "getraises"
 | "getter"
 | "implements"
 | "in"
 | "inherits"
 | "interface"
 | "long"
 | "module"
 | "null"
 | "object"
 | "octet"
 | "omittable"
 | "optional"
 | "raises"
 | "sequence"
 | "setraises"
 | "setter"
 | "short"
 | "static"
 | "stringifier"
 | "true"
 | "typedef"
 | "unsigned"
 | "void"
[51]OtherOrCommaOther
 | ","
[69]ExtendedAttributeNoArgidentifier
[70]ExtendedAttributeArgListidentifier "(" ArgumentList ")"
[71]ExtendedAttributeIdentidentifier "=" identifier
[72]ExtendedAttributeScopedNameidentifier "=" ScopedName
[73]ExtendedAttributeNamedArgListidentifier "=" identifier "(" ArgumentList ")"

3.10.1. [Callback]

Editorial note

Since the [Callback] extended attribute is now important at the IDL level to indicate whether user objects can implement a given interface, does it make sense to hoist it up into proper syntax (i.e., not be an extended attribute)?

It may be that [Callback] is not the best name for the extended attribute anyway, although it does capture many uses of interfaces that user objects can implement.

If the [Callback] extended attribute appears on an interface, it indicates that user objects can implement the interface. As described in section 3.8 above, user objects will only be considered to implement a given interface if the interface is annotated with [Callback]. User objects implementing an interface are most often used to provide callback methods to a platform object, hence the name of this extended attribute.

The [Callback] extended attribute MUST either take no argument or take an identifier. The identifier, if present, is used only by the ECMAScript language binding, to control exactly which kinds of objects can be considered to implement a [Callback]-annotated interface. See section 4.3.2 below for details.

The [Callback] extended attribute MUST NOT be used on an interface that does not meet the criteria for an interface that can implemented by user objects, as described in section 3.8 above.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines simplified versions of a few DOM interfaces, one of which is annotated with the [Callback] extended attribute.

IDL
interface Node {
  readonly attribute DOMString nodeName;
  readonly attribute Node? parentNode;
  Node appendChild(in Node newChild);
  void addEventListener(in DOMString type, in EventListener listener);
};

[Callback]
interface EventListener {
  void handleEvent(in Event event);
};

Since the EventListener interface is annotated with [Callback], user objects can implement it:

ECMAScript
var node = getNode();  // Obtain an instance of Node.

var listener = {
  handleEvent: function(event) {
    ...
  }
};
node.addEventListener("click", listener);

It is not possible for a user object to implement Node, however:

ECMAScript
var node = getNode();  // Obtain an instance of Node.

var newNode = {
  nodeName: "span",
  parentNode: null,
  appendChild: function(newchild) {
    ...
  },
  addEventListener: function(type, listener) {
    ...
  }
};
node.appendChild(newNode);  // This will throw a TypeError exception.

3.10.2. [Prefix]

If the [Prefix] extended attribute appears on a module, it affects the name of the language binding specific namespacing construct the module will correspond to. See the definition of a module’s prefixed name for details.

The [Prefix] extended attribute MUST take a scoped name.

Example

See section 5.3 for an example of the use of [Prefix].

4. ECMAScript binding

This section describes how definitions written with the IDL defined in section 3 correspond to particular constructs in ECMAScript, as defined by the ECMAScript Language Specification, 5th edition [ECMA-262]. A conforming ECMAScript implementation of a given set of IDL fragments MUST adhere to the requirements in this section.

Objects defined in this section have internal properties as described in ECMA-262 section 8.12 unless otherwise specified, in which case one or more of the following are redefined in accordance with the rules for host objects: [[Call]], [[DefineOwnProperty]], [[GetOwnProperty]] and [[Delete]].

If a value for the internal property [[Class]] is not given for a particular object, its value is implementation specific.

Unless otherwise specified, the [[Extensible]] internal property of objects defined in this section has the value true.

Unless otherwise specified, the [[Prototype]] internal property of objects defined in this section is the Object prototype object.

If an object is defined to be a function object, then it has characteristics as follows:

Algorithms in this section use the conventions described in ECMA-262 section 5.2 and the ToBoolean, ToNumber, ToUint16, ToInt32, ToUint32, ToString, ToObject, IsAccessorDescriptor and IsDataDescriptor abstract operations referenced in this section are defined in ECMA-262 sections 8 and 9.

4.1. ECMAScript environment

In a conforming ECMAScript implementation, there will be a number of ECMAScript objects that exist which correspond to definitions in the IDL fragments that it supports. These objects are termed the initial objects, and comprise the following:

Each ECMAScript global environment ([ECMA-262], section 10.2.3) MUST have its own unique set of each of the initial objects, created before control enters any ECMAScript execution context, but after the global object for that global environment is created. The [[Prototype]]s of all initial objects MUST come from the same global environment.

Example

In an HTML user agent, multiple global environments can exist when multiple frames or windows are created. Each frame or window will have its own set of initial objects, which the following HTML document demonstrates:

HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
<title>Different global environments</title>
<iframe id=a></iframe>
<script>
var iframe = document.getElementById("a");
var w = iframe.contentWindow;              // The global object in the frame

Object == w.Object;                        // Evaluates to false, per ECMA-262
Node == w.Node;                            // Evaluates to false
iframe instanceof w.Node;                  // Evaluates to false
iframe instanceof w.Object;                // Evaluates to false
iframe.appendChild instanceof Function;    // Evaluates to true
iframe.appendChild instanceof w.Function;  // Evaluates to false
</script>

4.2. ECMAScript type mapping

This section describes how types in the IDL map to types in ECMAScript.

Each sub-section below describes how values of a given IDL type are represented in ECMAScript. For each IDL type, it is described how ECMAScript values are converted to an IDL value when passed to a platform object expecting that type, and how IDL values of that type are converted to ECMAScript values when returned from a platform object.

4.2.1. any

Since the IDL any type is the union of all other IDL types, it can correspond to any ECMAScript value type.

How to convert an ECMAScript value to an IDL any value depends on the type of the ECMAScript value:

The undefined value
The IDL value is an object reference to a special object that represents the ECMAScript undefined value.
The null value
The IDL value is the null object? reference.
A Boolean value
The IDL value is the boolean value that represents the same truth value.
A Number value
The IDL value is that which is obtained by following the rules for converting the Number to an IDL double value, as described in section 4.2.13, below.
A String value
The IDL value is that which is obtained by following the rules for converting the String to an IDL DOMString value, as described in section 4.2.14, below.
An object value
The IDL value is an object value that references the same object.

An IDL any value is converted to an ECMAScript value as follows. If the value is an object reference to a special object that represents an ECMAScript undefined value, then it is converted to the ECMAScript undefined value. Otherwise, the rules for converting the specific type of the IDL value are performed.

4.2.2. void

The only place that the void type may appear in IDL is as the return type of an operation. Functions on platform objects that implement an operation whose IDL specifies a void return type MUST return the undefined value.

ECMAScript functions that implement an operation whose IDL specifies a void return type MAY return any value, which will be discarded.

4.2.3. boolean

IDL boolean values are represented by ECMAScript Boolean values.

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL boolean value by running the following algorithm:

  1. Let x be the result of computing ToBoolean(V).
  2. Return the IDL boolean value is the one that represents the same truth value as the ECMAScript Boolean value x.

The result of converting an IDL boolean value to an ECMAScript value is a Boolean that represents the same truth value as the IDL boolean value.

4.2.4. byte

IDL byte values are represented by integer ECMAScript Number values in the range [−128, 127].

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL byte value by running the following algorithm:

  1. Initialize x to ToNumber(V).
  2. If x is not NaN and the conversion to an IDL value is being performed due to any of the following: then set x to min(max(x, −27), 27 − 1).
  3. If x is NaN, +0, −0, +∞, or −∞, then return the IDL octet value that represents 0.
  4. Set x to sign(x) * floor(abs(x)).
  5. Set x to x modulo 28.
  6. If x ≥ 27, return the IDL byte value that represents the same numeric value as x − 28. Otherwise, return the IDL byte value that represents the same numeric value as x.

The result of converting an IDL byte value to an ECMAScript value is a Number that represents the same numeric value as the IDL byte value.

4.2.5. octet

IDL octet values are represented by integer ECMAScript Number values in the range [0, 255].

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL octet value by running the following algorithm:

  1. Initialize x to ToNumber(V).
  2. If x is not NaN and the conversion to an IDL value is being performed due to any of the following: then set x to min(max(x, 0), 28 − 1).
  3. If x is NaN, +0, −0, +∞, or −∞, then return the IDL octet value that represents 0.
  4. Set x to sign(x) * floor(abs(x)).
  5. Set x to x modulo 28.
  6. Return the IDL octet value that represents the same numeric value as x.

The result of converting an IDL octet value to an ECMAScript value is a Number that represents the same numeric value as the IDL octet value.

4.2.6. short

IDL short values are represented by integer ECMAScript Number values in the range [−32768, 32767].

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL short value by running the following algorithm:

  1. Initialize x to ToNumber(V).
  2. If x is not NaN and the conversion to an IDL value is being performed due to any of the following: then set x to min(max(x, −215), 215 − 1).
  3. If x is NaN, +0, −0, +∞, or −∞, then return the IDL short value that represents 0.
  4. Set x to sign(x) * floor(abs(x)).
  5. Set x to x modulo 216.
  6. If x ≥ 215, return the IDL short value that represents the same numeric value as x − 216. Otherwise, return the IDL short value that represents the same numeric value as x.

The result of converting an IDL short value to an ECMAScript value is a Number that represents the same numeric value as the IDL short value.

4.2.7. unsigned short

IDL unsigned short values are represented by integer ECMAScript Number values in the range [0, 65535].

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL unsigned short value by running the following algorithm:

  1. Initialize x to ToNumber(V).
  2. If x is not NaN and the conversion to an IDL value is being performed due to any of the following: then set x to min(max(x, 0), 216 − 1).
  3. Set x to ToUint16(x).
  4. Return the IDL unsigned short value that represents the same numeric value as x.

The result of converting an IDL unsigned short value to an ECMAScript value is a Number that represents the same numeric value as the IDL unsigned short value.

4.2.8. long

IDL long values are represented by integer ECMAScript Number values in the range [−2147483648, 2147483647].

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL long value by running the following algorithm:

  1. Initialize x to ToNumber(V).
  2. If x is not NaN and the conversion to an IDL value is being performed due to any of the following: then set x to min(max(x, −231), 231 − 1).
  3. Set x to ToInt32(x).
  4. Return the IDL long value that represents the same numeric value as x.

The result of converting an IDL long value to an ECMAScript value is a Number that represents the same numeric value as the IDL long value.

4.2.9. unsigned long

IDL unsigned long values are represented by integer ECMAScript Number values in the range [0, 4294967295].

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL unsigned long value by running the following algorithm:

  1. Initialize x to ToNumber(V).
  2. If x is not NaN and the conversion to an IDL value is being performed due to any of the following: then set x to min(max(x, 0), 232 − 1).
  3. Set x to ToUint32(x).
  4. Return the IDL unsigned long value that represents the same numeric value as x.

The result of converting an IDL unsigned long value to an ECMAScript value is a Number that represents the same numeric value as the IDL unsigned long value.

4.2.10. long long

IDL long long values are represented by ECMAScript Number values.

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL long long value by running the following algorithm:

  1. Initialize x to ToNumber(V).
  2. If x is not NaN and the conversion to an IDL value is being performed due to any of the following: then set x to min(max(x, −263), 263 − 1).
  3. If x is NaN, +0, −0, +∞, or −∞, then return the IDL long long value that represents 0.
  4. Set x to sign(x) * floor(abs(x)).
  5. Set x to x modulo 264.
  6. If x is greater than or equal to 263, return the IDL long long value that represents the same numeric value as x − 264. Otherwise, return the IDL long long value that represents the same numeric value as x.

The result of converting an IDL long long value to an ECMAScript value is a Number value that represents the closest numeric value to the long long. If the long long is in the range (−(253 − 1), 253 − 1), then the Number will be able to represent exactly the same value as the long long.

4.2.11. unsigned long long

IDL unsigned long long values are represented by ECMAScript Number values.

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL unsigned long long value by running the following algorithm:

  1. Initialize x to ToNumber(V).
  2. If x is not NaN and the conversion to an IDL value is being performed due to any of the following: then set x to min(max(x, 0), 264 − 1).
  3. If x is NaN, +0, −0, +∞, or −∞, then return the IDL unsigned long long value that represents 0.
  4. Set x to sign(x) * floor(abs(x)).
  5. Set x to x modulo 264.
  6. Return the IDL unsigned long long value that represents the same numeric value as x.

The result of converting an IDL unsigned long long value to an ECMAScript value is a Number value that represents the closest numeric value to the unsigned long long, choosing the numeric value with an even significand if there are two equally close values ([ECMA-262], section 8.5). If the unsigned long long is less than to 253 − 1, then the Number will be able to represent exactly the same value as the unsigned long long.

4.2.12. float

IDL float values are represented by ECMAScript Number values.

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL float value by running the following algorithm:

  1. Let x be ToNumber(V).
  2. If x is NaN, then return the IDL float value that represents the IEEE 754 NaN value with the bit pattern 0x7fc00000 [IEEE-754].
  3. Let S be the set of finite IEEE 754 single-precision floating point values except −0, but with two special values added: 2128 and −2128.
  4. Let y be the number in S that is closest to x, selecting the number with an even significand if there are two equally close values ([ECMA-262], section 8.5). (The two special values 2128 and −2128 are considered to have even significands for this purpose.)
  5. If y is 2128, return +∞.
  6. If y is −2128, return −∞.
  7. If y is +0 and x is negative, return −0.
  8. Return y.

The result of converting an IDL float value to an ECMAScript value is a Number:

  • If the IDL float value is a NaN, then the Number value is NaN.
  • Otherwise, the Number value is the one that represents the same numeric value as the IDL float value.

4.2.13. double

IDL double values are represented by ECMAScript Number values.

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL double value by running the following algorithm:

  1. Let x be ToNumber(V).
  2. If x is NaN, then return the IDL float value that represents the IEEE 754 NaN value with the bit pattern 0x7ff8000000000000 [IEEE-754].
  3. Let S be the set of finite IEEE 754 double-precision floating point values except −0, but with two special values added: 21024 and −21024.
  4. Let y be the number in S that is closest to x, selecting the number with an even significand if there are two equally close values ([ECMA-262], section 8.5). (The two special values 21024 and −21024 are considered to have even significands for this purpose.)
  5. If y is 21024, return +∞.
  6. If y is −21024, return −∞.
  7. If y is +0 and x is negative, return −0.
  8. Return y.

The result of converting an IDL double value to an ECMAScript value is a Number:

  • If the IDL double value is a NaN, then the Number value is NaN.
  • Otherwise, the Number value is the one that represents the same numeric value as the IDL double value.

4.2.14. DOMString

IDL DOMString values are represented by ECMAScript String values.

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL DOMString value by running the following algorithm:

  1. If V is null and the conversion to an IDL value is being performed due to any of the following: then return the DOMString value that represents the empty string.
  2. If V is undefined and the conversion to an IDL value is being performed due to any of the following: then return the DOMString value that represents the empty string.
  3. Let x be ToString(V).
  4. Return the IDL DOMString value that represents the same sequence of characters as the one the ECMAScript String value x represents.

The result of converting an IDL DOMString value to an ECMAScript value is the String value that represents the same sequence of 16 bit code units that the IDL DOMString represents.

4.2.15. object

IDL object values are represented by ECMAScript Object values.

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL object value by running the following algorithm:

  1. Let x be the result of calling ToObject(V).
  2. Return the IDL object value that is a reference to the same object as x.

The result of converting an IDL object value to an ECMAScript value is the Object value that represents a reference to the same object that the IDL object represents.

4.2.16. Interface types

IDL interface type values are represented by ECMAScript Object values.

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL interface type value by running the following algorithm (where I is the interface):

  1. Let x be the result of calling ToObject(V).
  2. If x is a platform object that implements I, then return the IDL interface type value that represents a reference to that platform object.
  3. If x is a user object that is considered to implement I according to the rules in section 4.8, then return the IDL interface type value that represents a reference to that user object.
  4. Throw a TypeError.

The result of converting an IDL interface type value to an ECMAScript value is the Object value that represents a reference to the same object that the IDL interface type value represents.

4.2.17. Dictionary types

IDL dictionary type values are represented by ECMAScript Object values. Properties on the object (or its prototype chain) correspond to dictionary members.

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL dictionary type value by running the following algorithm (where D is the dictionary):

  1. Let dict be an empty dictionary value of type D; every dictionary member is initially considered to be not present.
  2. Let object be the result of calling ToObject(V).
  3. Let dictionaries be a list consisting of D and all of D’s inherited dictionaries, in order from least to most derived.
  4. For each dictionary dictionary in dictionaries, in order:
    1. For each dictionary member member declared on D, in order:
      1. Let key be the identifier of member.
      2. Let present be the result of calling the [[HasProperty]] internal method on object with property name key.
      3. If present is true, then:
        1. Let value be the result of calling the [[Get]] internal method on object with property name key.
        2. Let idlValue be the result of converting value to an IDL value whose type is the type member is declared to be of.
        3. Set the dictionary member on dict with key name key to the value idlValue. This dictionary member is considered to be present.
  5. Return dict.

An IDL dictionary value V is converted to an ECMAScript Object value by running the following algorithm (where D is the dictionary):

  1. Let O be a new Object value created as if by the expression ({}).
  2. Let dictionaries be a list consisting of D and all of D’s inherited dictionaries, in order from least to most derived.
  3. For each dictionary dictionary in dictionaries, in order:
    1. For each dictionary member member declared on dictionary, in order:
      1. Let key be the identifier of member.
      2. If the dictionary member named key is present on V, then:
        1. Let idlValue be the value of member on V.
        2. Let value be the result of converting idlValue to an ECMAScript value.
        3. Call the [[Put]] internal method on O with arguments key, value and false.
  4. Return O.

4.2.18. Nullable types — T?

IDL nullable type values are represented by values of either the ECMAScript type corresponding to the inner IDL type, or the ECMAScript null value.

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL nullable type T? value (where T is the inner type) as follows:

  1. If V is undefined and the IDL type being converted to is DOMString?, then:
    1. If the conversion to an IDL value is being performed due to any of the following: then:
      1. If the argument given to [TreatUndefinedAs] is EmptyString, then return the DOMString? value that represents the empty string.
      2. Otherwise, the argument given to [TreatUndefinedAs] is Null. Return the null DOMString? value.
  2. Otherwise, if V is null or undefined, then return the IDL nullable type T? value null.
  3. Otherwise, return the result of converting V to the inner IDL type T.

The result of converting an IDL nullable type value to an ECMAScript value is:

4.2.19. Sequences — sequence<T>

IDL sequence<T> values are represented by ECMAScript Array values.

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL sequence<T> value as follows:

  1. If V is null or undefined, then return a sequence of length zero.
  2. Let A be the result of calling ToObject(V).
  3. Let length be the result of calling [[Get]] on A with property name length.
  4. Let n be the result of calling ToUint32(length).
  5. Initialize S0..n−1 to be an IDL sequence with elements of type T, where each element is uninitialized.
  6. Initialize i to be 0.
  7. While i < n:
    1. Let P be the result of calling ToString(i).
    2. Let E be the result of calling [[Get]] on A with property name P.
    3. Set Si to the result of converting E to an IDL value of type T.
    4. Set i to i + 1.
  8. Return S.

An IDL sequence value S0..n−1 of type sequence<T> is converted to an ECMAScript Array object as follows:

  1. Let A be a new Array object created as if by the expression [].
  2. Initialize i to be 0.
  3. While i < n:
    1. Let E be the result of converting Si to an ECMAScript value.
    2. Let P be the result of calling ToString(i).
    3. Call [[Put]] on A with property name P and value E.
    4. Set i to i + 1.
  4. Return A.
Example

The following interface defines an attribute of a sequence type as well as an operation with an argument of a sequence type.

IDL
interface Canvas {

  sequence<DOMString> getSupportedImageCodecs();

  void drawPolygon(in sequence<float> coordinates);

  // ...
};

In an ECMAScript implementation of this interface, an Array object with elements of type String is used to represent a sequence<DOMString>, while an Array with elements of type Number represents a sequence<float>. The Array objects are effectively passed by value; every time the getSupportedImageCodecs() function is called a new Array is returned, and whenever an Array is passed to drawPolygon a reference to it will never be kept.

ECMAScript

// Obtain an instance of Canvas.  Assume that getSupportedImageCodecs()
// returns a sequence with two DOMString values: "image/png" and "image/svg+xml".
var canvas = getCanvas();

// An Array object of length 2.
var supportedImageCodecs = canvas.getSupportedImageCodecs();

// Evaluates to "image/png".
supportedImageCodecs[0];

// Each time canvas.getSupportedImageCodecs() is called, it returns a
// new Array object.  Thus modifying the returned Array will not
// affect the value returned from a subsequent call to the function.
supportedImageCodecs[0] = "image/jpeg";

// Evaluates to "image/png".
canvas.getSupportedImageCodecs()[0];

// This evaluates to false.
canvas.getSupportedImageCodecs() == canvas.getSupportedImageCodecs();


// An Array of Numbers...
var a = [0, 0, 100, 0, 50, 62.5];

// ...can be passed to a platform object expecting a sequence<float>.
canvas.drawPolygon(a);

// Each element will be converted to a float by first calling ToNumber().
// So the following call is equivalent to the previous one, except that
// "hi" will be alerted before drawPolygon() returns.
canvas.drawPolygon
  ([false, '',
    { valueOf: function() { alert('hi'); return 100 } }, 0,
    '50', new Number(62.5)]);

// Modifying an Array that was passed to drawPolygon() is guaranteed not to
// have an effect on the Canvas, since the Array is effectively passed by value.
a[0] = 20;

4.2.20. Arrays — T[]

IDL array values are represented by references to objects known as platform array objects, with particular characteristics that allow them to behave similarly to native Array objects.

The value of the internal [[Prototype]] property of an platform array object MUST be the Array prototype object ([ECMA-262], section 15.4.4).

Note

Note that some of the functions from the Array prototype object will not behave on a fixed length platform array object as they do on an Array object, since attempting to assign to the length property will fail. Similarly, most of the functions from the Array prototype object will not perform any useful operation on read only arrays.

The value of the internal [[Class]] property of an platform array object MUST be the type name of the array type.

Platform array objects appear to have a length property and a property for each element of the array. The values and behaviors of these properties are implemented by the internal [[GetOwnProperty]], [[DefineOwnProperty]] and [[Delete]] methods, which are also defined below.

Platform array objects defy being fixed; if Object.freeze, Object.seal or Object.preventExtensions is called on one, the function MUST throw a TypeError.

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL array value of type T[] as follows:

  • Let O be the result of calling ToObject(V).
  • If O is an platform array object, then the IDL array value is the array value that the platform array object represents.
  • Otherwise, the IDL array value is determined as follows:
    1. Initialize n to be the result of calling [[Get]] on V with property name “length”.
    2. Set n to ToUint32(n).
    3. Initialize E0..n to be a list of IDL values.
    4. Initialize i to be 0.
    5. While i < n:
      1. Let x be the result of calling [[Get]] on V with property name ToString(i).
      2. Set Ei to be the result of converting x to an IDL value of type T.
      3. Set i to i + 1.
    6. The IDL array value is a fixed length array of length n whose values are E0..n.

An IDL array value V of type T[] is converted to an ECMAScript value as follows:

  • If V is already represented by an platform array object, then the ECMAScript value is that platform array object.
  • Otherwise, the ECMAScript value is a newly created platform array object that represents V.
Example

The following IDL defines an interface that has an unsigned short[] attribute.

IDL
[Constructor]
interface LotteryResults {
  readonly attribute unsigned short[] numbers;
};

Assuming that the array has a fixed length of 6, the following ECMAScript code illustrates how the array attribute in the above interface would behave:

ECMAScript
var results = new LotteryResults();  // results is a new platform object
                                     // implementing the LotteryResults interface.

var a = [4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42];      // Numbers can be assigned into the array.
for (var i = 0; i < 6; i++) {
  results.numbers[i] = a[i];
}

results.numbers = a;                 // This has no effect, since numbers is
                                     // read only.

a[0] = 5;                            // Change the array.
results.numbers[0];                  // Evaluates to 4, since results.numbers is
                                     // not a reference to 'a'.

results.numbers[0] = 5;              // Modifies the array stored in the platform
                                     // object.
results.numbers[0];                  // Now evaluates to 5.

results.numbers[0] = 6.25;           // Assigns 6 to the first element of the array
                                     // since that is how 6.5 is converted to an
                                     // unsigned short.

results.numbers.length = 7;          // Has no effect, since numbers is
                                     // fixed length.
results.numbers[6];                  // Evaluates to undefined.

results.numbers.slice(0, 2);         // Evaluates to an Array [4, 8].

results.numbers.push(108);           // Has no effect, since the definition of
                                     // push() relies on calling [[Put]] on a
                                     // non-existent array index property
                                     // and on "length", both of which will
                                     // be silently ignored.

delete results.numbers[3];           // Has no effect and evaluates to false,
                                     // since the array index properties are
                                     // non-configurable.

If passing an Array object to a platform object expecting an IDL array value, a new platform array object will be created to represent an IDL array value determined from that Array. If the LotteryResults interface is instead defined as:

IDL
[Constructor]
interface LotteryResults {
  attribute unsigned short[] numbers;
};

then an Array object can be assigned to the numbers property. Unless the prose accompanying the interface said otherwise, this would result in a fixed length array of whatever length the Array has being assigned to the IDL attribute.

ECMAScript
var results = new LotteryResults();

results.numbers.length;       // Evaluates to 6.

var a = [1, 3, 5];

results.numbers = a;          // Assigns a fixed length IDL array of length 3 to
                              // the numbers attribute.

results.numbers;              // This now evaluates to an platform array object
                              // that represents the fixed length IDL array,
                              // not the Array object assigned in the previous
                              // statement.

results.numbers.length;       // Evaluates to 3.
4.2.20.1. Platform array object [[GetOwnProperty]] method

The internal [[GetOwnProperty]] method of every platform array object A with element type T MUST behave as follows when called with property name P:

  1. Let length be the length of the IDL array that A represents.
  2. If P is “length”, then:
    1. Let desc be a newly created property descriptor ([ECMA-262], section 8.10) with no fields.
    2. Set desc.[[Value]] to the Number value for length.
    3. Set desc.[[Writable]] to false if A represents a read only or fixed length array, and true otherwise.
    4. Set desc.[[Enumerable]] to false.
    5. Set desc.[[Configurable]] to true.
    6. Return desc.
  3. Otherwise, if P is an array index ([ECMA-262], section 15.4), then:
    1. Let index be ToUint32(P).
    2. If index ≥ length, then return undefined.
    3. Let value be the result of converting the indexth element of the IDL array that A represents to an IDL value of type T.
    4. Let desc be a newly created property descriptor ([ECMA-262], section 8.10) with no fields.
    5. Set desc.[[Value]] to value.
    6. Set desc.[[Writable]] to false if A represents a read only array, and true otherwise.
    7. Set desc.[[Enumerable]] and desc.[[Configurable]] to true.
    8. Return desc.
  4. Return the result of calling the default [[GetOwnProperty]] internal method ([ECMA-262], section 8.12.1) on A passing P as the argument.
4.2.20.2. Platform array object [[DefineOwnProperty]] method

The internal [[DefineOwnProperty]] method of every platform array object A with element type T MUST behave as follows when passed property name P, property descriptor Desc and boolean flag Throw:

  1. Initialize oldLen to be the length of the IDL array that A represents.
  2. If P is “length”, then:
    1. If the result of calling IsDataDescriptor(Desc) is false, then Reject.
    2. Let newLen be ToUint32(Desc.[[Value]]).
    3. If newLen is not equal to ToNumber(Desc.[[Value]]), then throw a RangeError exception.
    4. If A represents a read only or fixed length IDL array, then Reject.
    5. If newLen > oldLen:
      1. Let value be the result of converting undefined to type T.
      2. Update the IDL array that A represents to have a length of newLen, and set every value of the IDL array at indices in the range [oldLennewLen) to value.
    6. Otherwise, if newLen < oldLen, then update the IDL array that A represents to have a length of newLen, discarding elements at indices in the range [newLenoldLen).
    7. Return true.
  3. Otherwise, if P is an array index ([ECMA-262], section 15.4), then:
    1. If the result of calling IsDataDescriptor(Desc) is false, then Reject.
    2. Let index be ToUint32(P).
    3. If indexoldLen, then:
      1. If A represents a read only or fixed length IDL array, then Reject.
      2. Let value be the result of converting undefined to type T.
      3. Update the IDL array that A represents to have a length of index + 1, and set every value of the IDL array at indices in the range [oldLenindex) to value.
    4. If A represents a read only IDL array, then Reject.
    5. Let newValue be the result of converting Desc.[[Value]] to an IDL value of type T.
    6. Set the indexth element of the IDL array that A represents to newValue.
    7. Return true.
  4. Set Desc.[[Configurable]] to true.
  5. Return the result of calling the default [[DefineOwnProperty]] internal method ([ECMA-262], section 8.12.9) on A passing P, Desc, and Throw as arguments.
4.2.20.3. Platform array object [[Delete]] method

The internal [[Delete]] method of every platform array object A with element type T MUST behave as follows when passed property name P and boolean flag Throw:

  1. If P is “length”, then Reject.
  2. Let length be the length of the IDL array that A represents.
  3. If P is an array index ([ECMA-262], section 15.4), then:
    1. Let index be ToUint32(P).
    2. If index < length, then Reject.
    3. Return true.
  4. If P has an own property with name P, then remove it.
  5. Return true.

4.2.21. Date

IDL Date values are represented by ECMAScript Date objects.

An ECMAScript value V is converted to an IDL Date value by running the following algorithm:

  1. Let D be the result of calling ToObject(V).
  2. If D is not an ECMAScript Date object, then throw a TypeError.
  3. If the time value of D is NaN, then return the undefined IDL Date value.
  4. Return the IDL Date value that represents the same millisecond as D.

An IDL Date value V is converted to an ECMAScript value by running the following the algorithm:

  1. If V is the undefined Date value, then return a newly constructed ECMAScript Date object whose time value is NaN.
  2. Otherwise, return a newly constructed ECMAScript Date object that represents the same millisecond as V.

Platform objects returning an ECMAScript Date object from attributes, operations or exception field do not hold on to a reference to the Date object. Script that modifies a Date object so returned cannot affect the platform object it was returned from.

4.3. ECMAScript-specific extended attributes

This section defines a number of extended attributes whose presence affects only the ECMAScript binding.

4.3.1. [AllowAny]

Editorial note

We perhaps should drop [AllowAny], and just make the overload resolution algorithm treat DOMString like “all remaining types”.

If the [AllowAny] extended attribute appears on an operation argument, it indicates that any ECMAScript value will be accepted as that argument’s value. Normally, as part of the overload resolution algorithm, a non-DOMString value will disqualify a given overloaded operation that is declared to take a DOMString for a given argument. When the [AllowAny] extended attribute is present on the argument, that disqualification is not performed.

The [AllowAny] extended attribute MUST take no argument.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines two interfaces, each with two overloaded operations. One uses [AllowAny] and one does not.

IDL
interface A {
  void f();
  void f(in A a);
  void f(in DOMString s);
};

interface B {
  void g();
  void g(in B b);
  void g([AllowAny] in DOMString s);
};

In an ECMAScript implementation of the above two interfaces, an A object will not allow a float value to be passed in as an argument, while a B object will:

ECMAScript
var a = getA();  // Obtain an instance of A.
var b = getB();  // Obtain an instance of B.

a.f(1.23);       // Throws a TypeError.
b.g(1.23);       // Equivalent to b.g("1.23").
b.g(a);          // Equivalent to calling b.g with ToString(a).

4.3.2. [Callback]

As described in section 3.10.1 above, the [Callback] extended attribute is used to indicate that an interface can be implemented by a user object. In the ECMAScript language binding, the identifier argument of [Callback], or the lack of one, is used to control which kinds of ECMAScript objects can be used as user object implementations of the interface, as follows:

  • If the extended attribute was specified as [Callback] (with no identifier argument) or as [Callback=PropertyOnly], then any native ECMAScript object is considered to be a user object implementation of the interface.
  • Otherwise, if it was specified as [Callback=FunctionOnly], then only Function objects are considered to be user object implementations of the interface.

[Callback=FunctionOnly] MUST NOT be specified on an interface that is not a single operation interface, which is an interface that:

Section 4.8 below details how native ECMAScript objects are used as user objects implementing an interface and exactly how [Callback] influences this.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines a simple callback interface and an interface for an object that expects an object that implements that callback:

IDL
[Callback]
interface Listener {
  void eventOccurred();
};

interface Thing {
  void addListener(in Listener listener);
};

An ECMAScript implementation of the above two interfaces allows any native object to be passed to addListener:

ECMAScript
// Obtain an instance of Thing.
var t = getThing();

// The function is the implementation of the eventOccurred operation on the
// Listener interface.  If Listener had been declared with
// [Callback=PropertyOnly] this addListener() call would still succeed, but
// a TypeError would be thrown when the user agent attempts to invoke the
// callback.
t.addListener(function() { });

// This also works, but it is the function with /* 1 */ in it that is the
// implementation of eventOccurred.
var x = function() { /* 1 */ };
x.eventOccurred = function() { /* 2 */ };
t.addListener(x);

// This works too, and the value of the eventOccurred property is the
// implementation of the operation.  If Listener had been declared with
// [Callback=FunctionOnly] however, this would have thrown a TypeError.
t.addListener({ eventOccurred: function() { } });

4.3.3. [Clamp]

If the [Clamp] extended attribute appears on an operation argument, writable attribute or dictionary member whose type is one of the integer types, it indicates that when an ECMAScript Number is converted to the IDL type, out of range values will be clamped to the range of valid values, rather than using the operators that use a modulo operation (ToInt16, ToInt32, ToUint32, etc.).

The [Clamp] extended attribute MUST take no argument.

The [Clamp] extended attribute MUST NOT appear on a read only attribute, or an attribute, operation argument or dictionary member that is not of an integer type.

Example

In the following IDL fragment, two operations are declared that take three octet arguments; one uses the [Clamp] extended attribute on all three arguments, while the other does not:

IDL
interface GraphicsContext {
  void setColor(in octet red, in octet green, in octet blue);
  void setColorClamped([Clamp] in octet red, [Clamp] in octet green, [Clamp] in octet blue);
};

In an ECMAScript implementation of the IDL, a call to setColorClamped with Number values that are out of range for an octet are clamped to the range [0, 255].

ECMAScript
// Get an instance of GraphicsContext.
var context = getGraphicsContext();

// Calling the non-[Clamp] version uses ToUint8 to coerce the Numbers to octets.
// This is equivalent to calling setColor(255, 255, 1).
context.setColor(-1, 255, 257);

// Call setColorClamped with some out of range values.
// This is equivalent to calling setColorClamped(0, 255, 255).
context.setColorClamped(-1, 255, 257);

4.3.4. [CopyInheritedPrototype]

If the [CopyInheritedPrototype] extended attribute appears on an interface, it indicates that the interface prototype object for this interface will have a copy of all of the properties that correspond to the constants, attributes and operations from the interface it inherits from. The prototype chain of objects that implement the [CopyInheritedPrototype]-annotated interface will not include the inherited interface’s interface prototype object.

The [CopyInheritedPrototype] extended attribute MUST take no argument. It MUST NOT appear on an interface that is not defined to inherit from another interface, or one that is defined to inherit from another interface which itself has an interface with the [CopyInheritedPrototype] extended attribute in its inheritance chain. The extended attribute also MUST NOT appear on an interface if any of its interface members have the same identifier as an interface member on the inherited interface.

4.3.5. [Constructor]

If the [Constructor] extended attribute appears on an interface, it indicates that the interface object for this interface will have an [[Construct]] internal method, allowing objects implementing the interface to be constructed. Multiple [Constructor] extended attributes may appear on a given interface.

The [Constructor] extended attribute MUST either take no argument or take an argument list. The bare form, [Constructor], has the same meaning as using an empty argument list, [Constructor()]. For each [Constructor] extended attribute on the interface, there will be a way to construct an object that implements the interface by passing the specified arguments.

See section 4.5.1.1 below for details on how a constructor is to be implemented.

Example

The following IDL defines two interfaces. The second has the [Constructor] extended attribute, while the first does not.

IDL
interface NodeList {
  Node item(in unsigned long index);
  readonly attribute unsigned long length;
};

[Constructor,
 Constructor(in float radius)]
interface Circle {
  attribute float r;
  attribute float cx;
  attribute float cy;
  readonly attribute float circumference;
};

An ECMAScript implementation supporting these interfaces would have a [[Construct]] property on the Circle interface object which would return a new object that implements the interface. It would take either zero or one argument. The NodeList interface object would not have a [[Construct]] property.

ECMAScript
var x = new Circle();      // The uses the zero-argument constructor to create a
                           // reference to a platform object that implements the
                           // Circle interface.

var y = new Circle(1.25);  // This also creates a Circle object, this time using
                           // the one-argument constructor.

var z = new NodeList();    // This would throw a TypeError, since no
                           // [Constructor] is declared.

4.3.6. [NamedConstructor]

If the [NamedConstructor] extended attribute appears on an interface, it indicates that the relevant namespace object for the interface (often, the ECMAScript global object) will have a property with the specified name whose value is a constructor function that can create objects that implement the interface. Multiple [NamedConstructor] extended attributes may appear on a given interface.

The [NamedConstructor] extended attribute MUST either take an identifier or take a named argument list. The first form, [NamedConstructor=identifier], has the same meaning as using an empty argument list, [NamedConstructor=identifier()]. For each [NamedConstructor] extended attribute on the interface, there will be a way to construct an object that implements the interface by passing the specified arguments to the constructor function that is the value of the aforementioned property.

The identifier used for the named constructor MUST NOT be the same as that used by an [NamedConstructor] extended attribute on another interface, and it MUST NOT be the same as an identifier of an interface (or exception) that has an interface object (or exception interface object).

See section 4.5.2 below for details on how named constructors are to be implemented.

Example

The following IDL defines an interface that uses the [NamedConstructor] extended attribute.

IDL
[NamedConstructor=Audio,
 NamedConstructor=Audio(in DOMString src)]
interface HTMLAudioElement : HTMLMediaElement {
  // ...
};

An ECMAScript implementation that supports this interface will allow the construction of HTMLAudioElement objects using the Audio constructor.

ECMAScript
typeof Audio;                   // Evaluates to 'function'.

var a1 = new Audio();           // Creates a new object that implements
                                // HTMLAudioElement, using the zero-argument
                                // constructor.

var a2 = new Audio('a.flac');   // Creates an HTMLAudioElement using the
                                // one-argument constructor.

4.3.7. [NamespaceObject]

If the [NamespaceObject] extended attribute appears on a module, it indicates that the hierarchy of that module and its descendant modules will be reflected as namespace objects. Interface objects and exception interface objects for interfaces and exceptions defined in a module annotated with [NamespaceObject] (or in a descendant of such a module) will be placed on a namespace object instead of the ECMAScript global object.

The [NamespaceObject] extended attribute MUST take no argument.

The [NamespaceObject] extended attribute MUST NOT be specified on a module if is specified on one of its ancestor modules.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines a module hierarchy where one of the modules is declared with the [NamespaceObject] extended attribute.

IDL
[NamespaceObject]
module acme {
  
  exception DeviceException { };

  module pim {

    [Constructor]
    interface Contact { };

    [Constructor,
     NamedConstructor=RecurringEvent(in long freq)]
    interface CalendarEvent { };
  };
};

In an ECMAScript implementation, there would exist namespace objects for the acme and pim modules. The property for the Device exception interface object would be on the acme namespace object and the properties for the Contact and CalendarEvent interface objects would be on the pim namespace object.

ECMAScript
acme;                             // A namespace object.
acme.pim;                         // Another namespace object.

acme.DeviceException;             // An exception interface object.
acme.pim.Contact;                 // An interface object.

new acme.pim.Contact();           // Creates an object implementing acme::pim::Contact.
new acme.pim.RecurringEvent(10);  // Creates an object implementing acme::pim::CalendarEvent.

4.3.8. [NoInterfaceObject]

If the [NoInterfaceObject] extended attribute appears on an interface, it indicates that an interface object will not exist for the interface in the ECMAScript binding. Similarly, if it appears on an exception it indicates that an exception interface object will not exist for the exception in the ECMAScript binding.

The [NoInterfaceObject] extended attribute MUST take no argument.

If the [NoInterfaceObject] extended attribute is specified on an interface, then the [Constructor] extended attribute MUST NOT also be specified on that interface.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines two interfaces, one whose interface object is exposed on the ECMAScript global object, and one whose isn’t:

IDL
interface Storage {
  void addEntry(in unsigned long key, in any value);
};

[NoInterfaceObject]
interface Query {
  any lookupEntry(in unsigned long key);
};

An ECMAScript implementation of the above IDL would allow manipulation of Storage’s prototype, but not Query’s.

ECMAScript
typeof Storage;                        // evaluates to "object"

// Add some tracing alert() call to Storage.addEntry.
var fn = Storage.prototype.addEntry;
Storage.prototype.addEntry = function(key, value) {
  alert('Calling addEntry()');
  return fn.call(this, key, value);
};

typeof Query;                          // evaluates to "undefined"
var fn = Query.prototype.lookupEntry;  // exception, Query isn’t defined

4.3.9. [OverrideBuiltins]

If the [OverrideBuiltins] extended attribute appears on an interface, it indicates that for a platform object implementing the interface, properties will appear to be own the object corresponding to all of the object’s supported property names, regardless of what other properties exist on the object or its prototype chain. This means that named properties will always shadow any properties that would otherwise appear on the object. This is in constrast to the usual behavior, which is for named properties to be exposed only if there is no property with the same name on the object itself or somewhere on its prototype chain.

The [OverrideBuiltins] extended attribute MUST take no argument and MUST NOT appear on an interface that does not define a name getter or that also is declared with the [ReplaceableNamedProperties] extended attribute.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines two interfaces, one that has a name getter and one that does not.

IDL
interface StringMap {
  readonly attribute unsigned long length;
  getter DOMString lookup(in DOMString key);
};

[OverrideBuiltins]
interface StringMap2 {
  readonly attribute unsigned long length;
  getter DOMString lookup(in DOMString key);
};

In an ECMAScript implementation of these two interfaces, getting certain properties on objects implementing the interfaces will result in different values:

ECMAScript
// Obtain an instance of StringMap.  Assume that it has "abc", "length" and
// "toString" as supported property names.
var map1 = getStringMap();  

// This invokes the name getter.
map1.abc;

// This fetches the "length" property on the object that corresponds to the
// length attribute.
map1.length;

// This fetches the "toString" property from the object's prototype chain.
map1.toString;


// Obtain an instance of StringMap2.  Assume that it also has "abc", "length"
// and "toString" as supported property names.
var map2 = getStringMap2();  

// This invokes the name getter.
map2.abc;

// This also invokes the name getter, despite the fact that the "length"
// property on the object corresponds to the length attribute.
map2.length;

// This too invokes the name getter, despite the fact that "toString" is
// a property in map2's prototype chain.
map2.toString;

4.3.10. [PutForwards]

If the [PutForwards] extended attribute appears on a read only attribute declaration whose type is an interface type, it indicates that assigning to the attribute will have specific behavior. Namely, the assignment is “forwarded” to the attribute (specified by the extended attribute argument) on the object that is currently referenced by the attribute being assigned to.

The [PutForwards] extended attribute MUST take an identifier. Assuming that:

then there MUST be another attribute B declared on J whose identifier is N. Assignment of a value to the attribute A on an object implementing I will result in that value being assigned to attribute B of the object that A references, instead.

Note that [PutForwards]-annotated attributes can be chained. That is, an attribute with the [PutForwards] extended attribute can refer to an attribute that itself has that extended attribute. There MUST NOT exist a cycle in a chain of forwarded assignments. A cycle exists if, when following the chain of forwarded assignments, a particular attribute on an interface is encountered more than once.

An attribute with the [PutForwards] extended attribute MUST NOT also be declared with the [Replaceable] extended attribute.

See the Attributes section below for how [PutForwards] is to be implemented.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines interfaces for names and people. The [PutForwards] extended attribute is used on the name attribute of the Person interface to indicate that assignments to that attribute result in assignments to the full attribute of the Person object:

IDL
interface Name {
  attribute DOMString full;
  attribute DOMString family;
  attribute DOMString given;
};

interface Person {
  [PutForwards=full] readonly attribute Name name;
  attribute unsigned short age;
};

In the ECMAScript binding, this would allow assignments to the name property:

ECMAScript
var p = getPerson();           // Obtain an instance of Person.

p.name = 'John Citizen';       // This statement...
p.name.full = 'John Citizen';  // ...has the same behavior as this one.

4.3.11. [Replaceable]

If the [Replaceable] extended attribute appears on a read only attribute, it indicates that setting the corresponding property on the platform object will result in that property being reconfigured to one that is unrelated to the attribute, and which has the value being assigned.

The [Replaceable] extended attribute MUST take no argument.

An attribute with the [Replaceable] extended attribute MUST NOT also be declared with the [PutForwards] extended attribute.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines an interface with an operation that increments a counter, and an attribute that exposes the counter’s value, which is initially 0:

IDL
interface Counter {
  [Replaceable] readonly attribute unsigned long value;
  void increment();
};

Assigning to the value property on a platform object implementing Counter will sever the link between the property and the IDL attribute it initially corresponds to:

ECMAScript
var counter = getCounter();  // Obtain an instance of Counter.
counter.value;               // Evaluates to 0.

counter.increment();
counter.increment();
counter.value;               // Evaluates to 2.

counter.value = 'a';         // Replaces the property with one that is unrelated
                             // to Counter::value.

counter.increment();
counter.value;               // Evaluates to 'a'.

4.3.12. [ReplaceableNamedProperties]

If the [ReplaceableNamedProperties] extended attribute appears on an interface, then for objects that support named properties but which do not have a name setter, attempting to set a property that corresponds to a named property will result in an own property being defined on the object, rather than in the assignment failing, which is the normal behavior.

Note

The assignment will normally fail because the platform object [[GetOwnProperty]] internal method will expose named properties as non-writable data properties.

The [ReplaceableNamedProperties] extended attribute MUST take no argument.

The [ReplaceableNamedProperties] extended attribute MUST NOT be declared on an interface that does not define a name getter, that does define a name setter or that also is declared with the [OverrideBuiltins] extended attribute.

Example

This extended attribute is intended to be used by the Window interface as defined in HTML5. The interface exposes frames as properties on the Window object. Since the Window object also serves as the ECMAScript global object, variable declarations or assignments to the named properties will result in them being replaced by the new value.

IDL
[ReplaceableNamedProperties]
interface Window {
  getter any (in DOMString name);
  // ...
};

The following HTML document illustrates how the named properties on the Window object can be replaced:

HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
<title>Replaceable named properties on Window</title>
<iframe name=abc></iframe>
<script>
window.abc;    // Evaluates to the iframe's Window object.
abc = 1;       // Replaces the named property.
window.abc;    // Evaluates to 1.
</script>

4.3.13. [TreatNullAs]

If the [TreatNullAs] extended attribute appears on an attribute or operation argument whose type is DOMString, it indicates that a null value assigned to the attribute or passed as the operation argument will be handled differently from its default handling. Instead of being stringified to "null", which is the default, it will be converted to the empty string "".

If [TreatNullAs] is specified on an operation itself, then it indicates that a user object implementing the interface will have the return value of the function that implements the operation handled in the same way as for operation arguments and attributes, as above.

The [TreatNullAs] extended attribute MUST take the identifier EmptyString.

The [TreatNullAs] extended attribute MUST NOT be specified on an operation argument, attribute or operation return value whose type is not DOMString.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines an interface that has one attribute with the [TreatNullAs] extended attribute, and one operation with an argument that has the extended attribute:

IDL
interface Dog {
  attribute DOMString name;
  attribute DOMString owner;

  boolean isMemberOfBreed([TreatNullAs=EmptyString] in DOMString breedName);
};

An ECMAScript implementation implementing the Dog interface would convert a null value assigned to the name property or passed as the argument to the isMemberOfBreed function:

ECMAScript
var d = getDog();         // Assume d is a platform object implementing the Dog
                          // interface.

d.name = null;            // This assigns the string "null" to the .name
                          // property.

d.isMemberOfBreed(null);  // This passes the string "" to the isMemberOfBreed
                          // function.

4.3.14. [TreatUndefinedAs]

If the [TreatUndefinedAs] extended attribute appears on an attribute or operation argument whose type is DOMString or DOMString?, it indicates that an undefined value assigned to the corresponding property or passed as an argument to the corresponding function will be handled differently from its default handling, which is to stringify to "undefined":

  • If the argument to [TreatUndefinedAs] is EmptyString, then the value assigned to the attribute or passed as the operation argument will be the empty string, "".
  • Otherwise, if the argument to [TreatUndefinedAs] is Null, then the value assigned to the attribute or passed as the operation argument will be the null value.

If [TreatUndefinedAs] is specified on an operation itself, then it indicates that a user object implementing the interface will have the return value of the function that implements the operation handled in the same way as for operation arguments and attributes, as above.

The [TreatUndefinedAs] extended attribute MUST take an identifier: either EmptyString or Null.

[TreatUndefinedAs=Null] MUST NOT be specified on operation argument, attribute or operation return value whose type is not DOMString?, and [TreatUndefinedAs=EmptyString] MUST NOT be specified on operation argument, attribute or operation return value whose type is neither DOMString nor DOMString?.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines an interface that has one attribute with the [TreatUndefinedAs] extended attribute, and one operation with an argument that has the extended attribute:

IDL
interface Cat {
  attribute DOMString name;
  attribute DOMString owner;

  boolean isMemberOfBreed([TreatUndefinedAs=EmptyString] in DOMString breedName);
};

An ECMAScript implementation implementing the Cat interface would convert an undefined value assigned to the name or owner property to the string "undefined", and an undefined value passed as the argument to the isMemberOfBreed function would be converted to the empty string "":

ECMAScript
var c = getCat();              // Obtain an instance of Cat.

c.name = undefined;            // This assigns the string "undefined" to the
                               // .name property.

c.isMemberOfBreed(undefined);  // This passes the string "" to the
                               // isMemberOfBreed function.

4.3.15. [Unforgeable]

If the [Unforgeable] extended attribute appears on a read only attribute, it indicates that the attribute will be reflected as an ECMAScript property in a way that means its behavior cannot be modified and that performing a property lookup on the object will always result in the attribute’s property value being returned. In particular, the property will be non-configurable and will exist as an own property on the object itself rather than on its prototype.

The [Unforgeable] extended attribute MUST take no argument.

The [Unforgeable] extended attribute MUST NOT appear on anything other than a read only attribute. It also MUST NOT appear on an attribute on interface A if there exists another interface B that defines any interface member with the same identifier, and which either has A as an inherited interface or which is a consequential interface of A.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines an interface that has two attributes, one of which is designated as [Unforgeable]:

IDL
interface System {
  [Unforgeable] readonly attribute DOMString username;
  readonly attribute Date loginTime; 
};

An ECMAScript implementation of the interface will expose the username attribute as a non-configurable property on the object itself:

ECMAScript
var system = getSystem();                      // Get an instance of System.

system.hasOwnProperty("username");             // Evaluates to true.
system.hasOwnProperty("loginTime");            // Evaluates to false.
System.prototype.hasOwnProperty("username");   // Evaluates to false.
System.prototype.hasOwnProperty("loginTime");  // Evaluates to true.

try {
  // This call would fail, since the property is non-configurable.
  Object.defineProperty(system, "username", { value: "administrator" });
} catch (e) { }

// This defineProperty call would succeed, because System.prototype.loginTime
// is configurable.
var forgedLoginTime = new Date(new Date() - 3600000);
Object.defineProperty(System.prototype, "loginTime", { value: forgedLoginTime });

system.loginTime;  // So this now evaluates to forgedLoginTime.

4.4. Modules

The hierarchy of modules in an IDL fragment can, but need not be, reflected in an ECMAScript implementation. Whether a module hierarchy is reflected or not depends on the use of the [NamespaceObject] extended attribute.

For every module that is declared with the [NamespaceObject] extended attribute, and for every module that has an ancestor module declared with the [NamespaceObject] extended attribute, there exists a unique namespace object, which provides access to the interface objects and exception interface objects for the interfaces and exceptions declared in the module.

The relevant namespace object for a module, interface or exception A is determined as follows:

For every module that has a namespace object, a corresponding property MUST exist on the relevant namespace object for the module. The name of the property is the identifier of the module, its value is the namespace object for the module, and the property has the attributes { [[Writable]]: true, [[Enumerable]]: false, [[Configurable]]: true }.

4.5. Interfaces

For every interface that is not declared with the [NoInterfaceObject] extended attribute, a corresponding property MUST exist on the interface’s relevant namespace object. The name of the property is the identifier of the interface, and its value is an object called the interface object, which provides access to the constants, attributes and operations defined on the interface. The property has the attributes { [[Writable]]: true, [[Enumerable]]: false, [[Configurable]]: true }. The characteristics of an interface object is described in section 4.5.1 below.

In addition, for every [NamedConstructor] extended attribute on an interface, a corresponding property MUST exist on the interface’s relevant namespace object. The name of the property is the identifier that occurs directly after the “=”, and its value is an object called a named constructor, which allows construction of objects that implement the interface. The property has the attributes { [[Writable]]: true, [[Enumerable]]: false, [[Configurable]]: true }. The characteristics of a named constructor is described in section 4.5.2 below.

4.5.1. Interface object

There exists an interface object for every interface not declared with the [NoInterfaceObject] extended attribute. Interface objects are always function objects.

The [[Class]] property of the interface object MUST be the identifier of the interface.

The interface object also has properties that correspond to the constants and static operations defined on that interface, as described in sections 4.5.4 and 4.5.6 below.

The interface object MUST also have a property named prototype with attributes { [[Writable]]: false, [[Enumerable]]: false, [[Configurable]]: false } whose value is an object called the interface prototype object. This object has properties that correspond to the attributes and operations defined on the interface, and is described in more detail in section 4.5.3 below.

4.5.1.1. Interface object [[Call]] method

If the interface is declared with a [Constructor] extended attribute, then the interface object can be called as a function to create an object that implements that interface. Interfaces that do not have a constructor will throw an exception when called as a function.

In order to define how overloaded constructor invocations are resolved, the overload resolution algorithm is defined. Its input is an effective overload set, S, and a list of ECMAScript values, arg0..n−1. The algorithm behaves as follows:

  1. Initialize entries to a set with the same values as S.
  2. Initialize candidates also to a set with the same values as S.
  3. Let maxarg be the length of the longest type list of the entries in S.
  4. Let argcount be min(maxargn).
  5. Remove from candidates all entries whose type list is not of length argcount.
  6. Initialize i to 0.
  7. While i < argcount:
    1. If not all entries in entries have identical types at position i in their type lists, then:
      1. Initialize types to the set of IDL types { any }.
      2. Depending on the value of argi:
        An Undefined, Boolean or Number value
        Add to types the primitive types and nullable primitive types.
        A String value
        Add to types the DOMString and DOMString? types.
        null
        Add to types all nullable types.
        A platform array object
        Add to types the object type and an array type that corresponds to the type of the IDL array the platform array object represents.
        Any other platform object
        Add to types the object type and an interface type for all interfaces that are equal to, or inherit from, at least one of the interfaces that the platform object implements.
        A native Array object
        (That is, a native object whose [[Class]] is "Array".) Add to types the object type, an interface type for each interface annotated with the [Callback] extended attribute and all array types.
        A native Date object
        (That is, a native object whose [[Class]] is "Date".) Add to types the object type, an interface type for each interface annotated with the [Callback] extended attribute and the Date type.
        Any other object
        Add to types the object type and an interface type for each interface annotated with the [Callback] extended attribute.
      3. Remove from candidates all entries with type list t and boolean list a where ai is false and ti ∉ types.
      4. If there exists an entry in candidates with type list t where ti ∈ types, then remove from R all entries with type list t where ti ∉ types.
    2. Set i to i + 1.
  8. Return R.

The internal [[Call]] method of the interface object behaves as follows, assuming arg0..n−1 is the list of argument values passed to the constructor, and I is the interface:

  1. If I was not declared with a [Constructor] extended attribute, then throw a TypeError.
  2. Let id be the identifier of interface I.
  3. Initialize S to the effective overload set for constructors with identifier id on interface I and with argument count n (for the ECMAScript language binding).
  4. Set S to the result of passing S and arg0..n−1 to the overload resolution algorithm.
  5. If S is empty, throw a TypeError.
  6. If S contains more than one entry, then the constructor call is ambiguous. Remove all but one entry from S according to rules specified in the description of interface I, or arbitrarily if no such rules exist.
  7. Let x be the extended attribute that represents the constructor and t0..m−1 be the type list of the single entry in S.
  8. Let idlarg0..m−1 be a list of IDL values, where idlargi is the result of converting argi to an IDL value. These conversions MUST be done in order from arg0 to argm−1.
  9. Let R be the result of performing the actions listed in the description of the constructor represented by x with idlarg0..m−1 as the argument values.
  10. Return the result of converting R to an ECMAScript interface type value I.

If the internal [[Call]] method of the interface object returns normally, then it MUST return an object that implements interface I.

Interface objects for interfaces declared with a [Constructor] extended attribute MUST have a property named “length” with attributes { [[Writable]]: false, [[Enumerable]]: false, [[Configurable]]: false } whose value is a Number determined as follows:

  1. Let id be the identifier of interface I.
  2. Initialize S to the effective overload set for constructors with identifier id on interface I and with argument count 0 (for the ECMAScript language binding).
  3. Return the maximum argument list length of the constructors in the entries of S.

4.5.2. Named constructors

A named constructor that exists due to one or more [NamedConstructor] extended attributes with a given identifier is a function object. It MUST have a [[Call]] internal property, which allows construction of objects that implement the interface on which the [NamedConstructor] extended attributes appear. It behaves as follows, assuming arg0..n−1 is the list of argument values passed to the constructor, id is the identifier of the constructor specified in the extended attribute named argument list, and I is the interface on which the [NamedConstructor] extended attribute appears:

  1. Initialize S to the effective overload set for constructors with identifier id on interface I and with argument count n (for the ECMAScript language binding).
  2. Set S to the result of passing S and arg0..n−1 to the overload resolution algorithm.
  3. If S is empty, throw a TypeError.
  4. If S contains more than one entry, then the constructor call is ambiguous. Remove all but one entry from S according to rules specified in the description of interface I, or arbitrarily if no such rules exist.
  5. Let x be the extended attribute that represents the constructor, and t0..m−1 be the type list, of the single entry in S.
  6. Let idlarg0..m−1 be a list of IDL values, where idlargi is the result of converting argi to an IDL value. These conversions MUST be done in order from arg0 to argm−1.
  7. Let R be the result of performing the actions listed in the description of the constructor represented by x with idlarg0..m−1 as the argument values.
  8. Return the result of converting R to an ECMAScript interface type value I.

If the internal [[Call]] method of the named constructor returns normally, then it MUST return an object that implements interface I.

A named constructor MUST have a property named “length” with attributes { [[Writable]]: false, [[Enumerable]]: false, [[Configurable]]: false } whose value is a Number determined as follows:

  1. Initialize S to the effective overload set for constructors with identifier id on interface I and with argument count 0 (for the ECMAScript language binding).
  2. Return the maximum argument list length of the constructors in the entries of S.

4.5.3. Interface prototype object

There MUST exist an interface prototype object for every interface defined, regardless of whether the interface was declared with the [NoInterfaceObject] extended attribute. The interface prototype object for a particular interface has properties that correspond to the attributes and operations defined on that interface. These properties are described in more detail in sections 4.5.5 and 4.5.6 below.

As with the interface object, the interface prototype object also has properties that correspond to the constants defined on that interface, described in section 4.5.4 below.

If the [NoInterfaceObject] extended attribute was not specified on the interface, then the interface prototype object MUST also have a property named “constructor” with attributes { [[Writable]]: true, [[Enumerable]]: false, [[Configurable]]: true } whose value is a reference to the interface object for the interface.

The interface prototype object for a given interface A MUST have an internal [[Prototype]] property whose value is as follows:

  1. If A is not declared to inherit from another interface, then the value of the internal [[Prototype]] property of A is the Object prototype object ([ECMA-262], section 15.2.4).
  2. Otherwise, if A is declared with the [CopyInheritedPrototype] extended attribute, then value of the internal [[Prototype]] property of A is the same as the value of the internal [[Prototype]] property of the interface prototype object of the interface A inherits from.
  3. Otherwise, A does inherit from another interface and is not declared with the [CopyInheritedPrototype] extended attribute. The value of the internal [[Prototype]] property of A is the interface prototype object for the inherited interface.

Any properties corresponding to constants, attributes or operations that are required to exist on an interface A’s interface prototype object MUST also exist, with the same characteristics, on the interface prototype object of interfaces that inherit from A and are declared with the [CopyInheritedPrototype] extended attribute.

4.5.4. Constants

For each constant defined on an interface A, there MUST be a corresponding property on the interface object, if it exists, if the identifier of the constant is not “prototype”. The property has the following characteristics:

  • The name of the property is the identifier of the constant.
  • The value of the property is that which is obtained by converting the constant’s IDL value to an ECMAScript value.
  • The property has attributes { [[Writable]]: false, [[Enumerable]]: true, [[Configurable]]: false }.

In addition, a property with the same characteristics MUST exist on the interface prototype object, unless:

4.5.5. Attributes

For each attribute defined on the interface, there MUST be a corresponding property either on the interface prototype object or on every object that implements the interface, unless:

  • the identifier of the attribute is “constructor”; or
  • the identifier of the attribute is “toString” and the interface has a stringifier.

The characteristics of these properties are as follows:

  • If the attribute was declared with the [Unforgeable] extended attribute, then the property exists on every object that implements the interface. Otherwise, it exists on the interface’s interface prototype object.
  • The name of the property is the identifier of the attribute.
  • The property has attributes { [[Get]]: G, [[Set]]: S, [[Enumerable]]: true, [[Configurable]]: configurable }, where:
  • The attribute getter is a Function object whose behavior when invoked is as follows:
    1. Let O be the result of calling ToObject on the this value.
    2. If O is not a platform object that implements the interface on which the attribute was declared, then throw a TypeError.
    3. Let idlValue be the result of performing the actions listed in the description of the attribute that occur when getting (or those listed in the description of the inherited attribute, if this attribute is declared to inherit its getter), with O as the object.
    4. Let V be the result of converting the idlValue to an ECMAScript value.
    5. Return V.
    The value of the Function object’s length property is the Number value 0.
  • The attribute setter is undefined if the attribute is declared readonly and has neither a [PutForwards] nor a [Replaceable] extended attribute declared on it. Otherwise, it is a Function object whose behavior when invoked is as follows:
    1. Let O be the result of calling ToObject on the this value.
    2. If O is not a platform object that implements the interface on which the attribute was declared, then throw a TypeError.
    3. Let V be the value of the first argument passed to the Function, or undefined is no arguments were passed.
    4. If the attribute is declared with a [PutForwards] extended attribute, then:
      1. Let Q be the result of calling the [[Get]] method on O using the identifier of the attribute as the property name.
      2. If Q is not an object, then throw a TypeError.
      3. Let A be the attribute identified by the [PutForwards] extended attribute.
      4. Call the [[Put]] method on Q using the identifier of A as the property name and V as the value.
      5. Return.
    5. If the attribute is declared with a [Replaceable] extended attribute, then:
      1. Let O be the result of calling ToObject on the this value.
      2. If O is not an instance of the interface on which the attribute was declared, then throw a TypeError.
      3. Let P be the identifier of the attribute.
      4. Call the [[DefineOwnProperty]] method of O passing property name P, Property Descriptor { [[Value]]: V, [[Writable]]: true, [[Enumerable]]: true, [[Configurable]]: true }, and false.
      5. Return undefined.
    6. Let idlValue be the result of converting V to an IDL value.
    7. Perform the actions listed in the description of the attribute that occur when setting, with O as the object and idlValue as the value.
    8. Return undefined.
    The value of the Function object’s length property is the Number value 1.

Note that attempting to assign to a property corresponding to a read only attribute results in different behavior depending on whether the script doing so is in strict mode. When in strict mode, such an assignment will result in a TypeError being thrown. When not in strict mode, the assignment attempt will be ignored.

4.5.6. Operations

For each unique identifier of a non-omittable operation defined on the interface, there MUST be a corresponding property on the interface prototype object (if it is a regular operation) or the interface object (if it is a static operation), unless:

  • the effective overload set for that identifier and operation and with an argument count of 0 (for the ECMAScript language binding) has no entries; or
  • the operation is a regular operation and its identifier is “constructor”; or
  • the operation is a regular operation, its identifier is “toString” and the interface has a stringifier; or
  • the operation is a static operation and its identifier is “toString”; or
  • the operation is a static operation and its identifier is “prototype”.

The characteristics of such a corresponding property are as follows:

  • The name of the property is the identifier.
  • The property has attributes { [[Writable]]: true, [[Enumerable]]: true, [[Configurable]]: true }.
  • The value of the property is a Function object whose behavior is as follows, assuming id is the identifier, arg0..n−1 is the list of argument values passed to the function and I is the interface:
    1. Let O be the result of calling ToObject on the this value.
    2. If O is not a platform object that implements interface I, throw a TypeError.
    3. Initialize S to the effective overload set for regular operations (if the operation is a regular operation) or for static operations (if the operation is a static operation) with identifier id on interface I and with argument count n (for the ECMAScript language binding).
    4. Set S to the result of passing S and arg0..n−1 to the overload resolution algorithm.
    5. If S is empty, throw a TypeError.
    6. If S contains more than one entry, then the operation call is ambiguous. Remove all but one entry from S according to rules specified in the description of interface I, or arbitrarily if no such rules exist.
    7. Let op be the operation and t0..m−1 be the type list of the single entry in S.
    8. Let idlarg0..m−1 be a list of IDL values, where idlargi is the result of converting argi to an IDL value. These conversions MUST be done in order from arg0 to argm−1.
    9. Let R be the result of performing the actions listed in the description of operation op with idlarg0..m−1 as the argument values.
    10. Return the result of converting R to an ECMAScript value of the type op is declared to return.
  • The value of the Function object’s length property is a Number determined as follows:
    1. Let S be the effective overload set for regular operations (if the operation is a regular operation) or for static operations (if the operation is a static operation) with identifier id on interface I and with argument count 0 (for the ECMAScript language binding).
    2. Return the maximum argument list length of the functions in the entries of S.

In addition, if the interface has a stringifier, then a property MUST exist on the interface prototype object whose name is toString, with attributes { [[Writable]]: true, [[Enumerable]]: true, [[Configurable]]: true } and whose value is a Function object. If stringifier was specified on an attribute A, then the function, when invoked, MUST behave as follows:

  1. Let O be the result of calling ToObject on the this value.
  2. If O is not an object that implements the interface on which A was declared, then throw a TypeError.
  3. Let V be the result of invoking the [[Get]] method of O with P as the argument.
  4. Return ToString(V).

If stringifier was specified on an operation with an identifier P, then the function, when invoked, MUST behave as follows:

  1. Let O be the result of calling ToObject on the this value.
  2. Let F be the result of invoking the [[Get]] method of object O with P as the argument.
  3. If F is not callable, throw a TypeError.
  4. Let V be the result of invoking the [[Call]] method of F, using O as the this value and passing no arguments.
  5. Return ToString(V).

If stringifier was specified on an operation with no identifier, then the behavior of the function is the stringification behavior of the interface, as described in the prose for the interface.

4.6. Implements statements

The interface prototype object of an interface A MUST have a copy of each property that corresponds to one of the constants, attributes or operations that exist on all of the interface prototype objects of A’s consequential interfaces, unless A’s interface prototype object already has a property of the same name on it due to A’s interface members. If there would still be conflicting property definitions, then it is undefined which consequential interface’s interface member that property on A’s interface prototype object corresponds to.

4.7. Platform objects implementing interfaces

Every platform object is associated with a global environment, just as the initial objects are. It is the responsibility of specifications using Web IDL to state which global environment (or, by proxy, which global object) each platform object is associated with.

The primary interface of a platform object that implements one or more interfaces is the most-derived non-supplemental interface that it implements. The value of the internal [[Prototype]] property of the platform object is the interface prototype object of the primary interface.

The value of the internal [[Class]] property of a platform object that implements one or more interfaces MUST be the identifier of the primary interface of the platform object.

4.7.1. Indexed and named properties

If a platform object implements an interface that supports indexed or named properties, the object will appear to have additional properties that correspond to the object’s indexed and named properties. These properties are not “real” own properties on the object, but are made to look like they are by being exposed by the [[GetOwnProperty]] internal method.

It is permissible for an object to implement multiple interfaces that support indexed properties. However, if so, and there are conflicting definitions as to the object’s supported property indices, or if one of the interfaces is a supplemental interface for the platform object, then it is undefined what additional properties the object will appear to have, or what its exact behavior will be with regard to its indexed properties. The same applies for named properties.

The index getter that is defined on the derived-most interface that the platform object implements is the one that defines the behavior when indexing the object with an array index. Similarly for index setters, deleters and creators. This way, the definitions of these special operations from ancestor interfaces can be overridden.

Platform objects implementing an interface that support indexed or named properties defy being fixed; if Object.freeze, Object.seal or Object.preventExtensions is called on one, these the function MUST throw a TypeError.

The name of each property that appears to exist due to an object supporting indexed properties is an array index property name, which is a property name P for which the following algorithm returns true:

  1. Let i be ToUint32(P).
  2. Let s be ToString(i).
  3. If sP or i = 232 − 1, then return false.
  4. Return true.

Specifications can state that certain named properties are resolved before prototype properties. This means that such named properties will be resolved after real own properties on the object (as with all non-[OverrideBuiltins] named properties), but before properties from the prototype chain. Specifications SHOULD NOT declare any named properties to be resolved before prototype properties unless this is required to specify the behavior of legacy APIs.

Note

At the time of writing, the only known justifiable use of named properties that are resolved before prototype properties is the Window interface defined in HTML5.

The named property visibility algorithm is used to determine if a given named property is exposed on an object. Some named properties are not exposed on an object depending on whether the [OverrideBuiltins] extended attribute was used. The algorithm operates as follows, with property name P and object O:

  1. If O implements an interface with an [Unforgeable]-annotated attribute whose identifier is P, then return false.
  2. If P is not a supported property name of O, then return false.
  3. If O implements an interface that has the [OverrideBuiltins] extended attribute, then return true.
  4. If O has an own property named P, then return false.
  5. If P is to be resolved before prototype properties, then return true.
  6. Let prototype be the value of the internal [[Prototype]] property of O.
  7. If prototype is null, then return true.
  8. If the result of calling the [[HasProperty]] internal method on prototype with property name P is true, then return false.
  9. Return true.
Note

This should ensure that for objects with named properties, property resolution is done in the following order:

  1. Indexed properties.
  2. Unforgeable attributes.
  3. Then, if [OverrideBuiltins]:
    1. Named properties.
    2. Own properties.
    3. Properties from the prototype chain.
  4. Otherwise, if not [OverrideBuiltins]:
    1. Own properties.
    2. Any named properties to be resolved before prototype properties.
    3. Properties from the prototype chain.
    4. Any other named properties.

Support for getters is handled by the platform object [[GetOwnProperty]] method defined in section 4.7.2, for creators and setters by the platform object [[DefineOwnProperty]] method defined in section 4.7.3, and for deleters by the platform object [[Delete]] method defined in section 4.7.4.

4.7.2. Platform object [[GetOwnProperty]] method

The internal [[GetOwnProperty]] method of every platform object O that implements an interface which supports indexed or named properties MUST behave as follows when called with property name P:

  1. If O supports indexed properties and P is an array index property name, then:
    1. Let index be the result of calling ToUint32(P).
    2. If index is a supported property index, then:
      1. Let operation be the operation used to declare the index getter.
      2. Let value be an uninitialized variable.
      3. If operation was defined without an identifier, then set value to the result of performing the steps listed in the interface description to determine the value of an indexed property with index as the index.
      4. Otherwise, operation was defined with an identifier. Set value to the result of performing the steps listed in the description of operation with index as the only argument value.
      5. Let desc be a newly created property descriptor ([ECMA-262], section 8.10) with no fields.
      6. Set desc.[[Value]] to the result of converting value to an ECMAScript value.
      7. If O implements an interface with an index setter, then set desc.[[Writable]] to true, otherwise set it to false.
      8. Set desc.[[Enumerable]] and desc.[[Configurable]] to true.
      9. Return desc.
  2. If O supports named properties, then:
    1. If the result of running the named property visibility algorithm with property name P and object O is true, then:
      1. Let operation be the operation used to declare the name getter.
      2. Let value be an uninitialized variable.
      3. If operation was defined without an identifier, then set value to the result of performing the steps listed in the interface description to determine the value of a named property with P as the name.
      4. Otherwise, operation was defined with an identifier. Set value to the result of performing the steps listed in the description of operation with P as the only argument value.
      5. Let desc be a newly created property descriptor ([ECMA-262], section 8.10) with no fields.
      6. Set desc.[[Value]] to the result of converting value to an ECMAScript value.
      7. If O implements an interface with an name setter and O does not implement an interface with the [ReplaceableNamedProperties] extended attribute, then set desc.[[Writable]] to true, otherwise set it to false.
      8. Set desc.[[Enumerable]] and desc.[[Configurable]] to true.
      9. Return desc.
  3. Return the result of calling the default [[GetOwnProperty]] internal method ([ECMA-262], section 8.12.1) on O passing P as the argument.

4.7.3. Platform object [[DefineOwnProperty]] method

The internal [[DefineOwnProperty]] method of every platform object O that implements an interface which supports indexed or named properties MUST behave as follows when called with property name P, property descriptor Desc and boolean flag Throw. The term “Reject” is used in the same sense as that defined in ECMA-262, namely, to mean “If Throw is true, then throw a TypeError exception, otherwise return false”.

  1. Set Desc.[[Configurable]] to true.
  2. If O supports indexed properties and P is an array index property name, then:
    1. If the result of calling IsDataDescriptor(Desc) is false, then Reject.
    2. Let index be the result of calling ToUint32(P).
    3. Let creating be true if index is not a supported property index, and false otherwise.
    4. If creating is true and O does not implement an interface with an index creator, then Reject.
    5. If creating is false and O does not implement an interface with an index setter, then Reject.
    6. Let operation be the operation used to declare the index creator if creating is true, or the index setter if creating is false.
    7. Let T be the type of the second argument of operation.
    8. Let value be the result of converting Desc.[[Value]] to an IDL value of type T.
    9. If operation was defined without an identifier, then:
      1. If creating is true, then perform the steps listed in the interface description to set the value of a new indexed property with index as the index and value as the value.
      2. Otherwise, creating is false. Perform the steps listed in the interface description to set the value of an existing indexed property with index as the index and value as the value.
    10. Otherwise, operation was defined with an identifier. Perform the steps listed in the description of operation with index and value as the two argument values.
    11. Return true.
  3. If O supports named properties and P is not the identifier of an [Unforgeable]-annotated attribute on an interface that O implements, then:
    1. Let creating be true if P is not a supported property name, and false otherwise.
    2. If creating is false and O implements an interface with the [ReplaceableNamedProperties] extended attribute, then:
      1. If the result of calling IsAccessorDescriptor(Desc) is true, then:
        1. Create an own accessor property named P on O whose [[Get]], [[Set]], [[Enumerable]] and [[Configurable]] attribute values are described by Desc. If the value of an attribute field of Desc is absent, the attribute of the newly created property is set to its default value ([ECMA-262], section 8.6.1).
      2. Otherwise:
        1. Create an own data property named P on O whose [[Value]], [[Writable]], [[Enumerable]] and [[Configurable]] attribute values are described by Desc. If the value of an attribute field of Desc is absent, the attribute of the newly created property is set to its default value ([ECMA-262], section 8.6.1).
      3. Return true.
    3. Otherwise, if O implements an interface with the [OverrideBuiltins] extended attribute or O does not have an own property named P, then:
      1. If creating is false and O does not implement an interface with a name setter, then Reject.
      2. If creating is false or O implements an interface with a name creator, then:
        1. If the result of calling IsDataDescriptor(Desc) is false, then Reject.
        2. Let operation be the operation used to declare the name creator if creating is true, or the name setter if creating is false.
        3. Let T be the type of the second argument of operation.
        4. Let value be the result of converting Desc.[[Value]] to an IDL value of type T.
        5. If operation was defined without an identifier, then:
          1. If creating is true, then perform the steps listed in the interface description to set the value of a new named property with P as the name and value as the value.
          2. Otherwise, creating is false. Perform the steps listed in the interface description to set the value of an existing named property with P as the name and value as the value.
        6. Otherwise, operation was defined with an identifier. Perform the steps listed in the description of operation with index and value as the two argument values.
        7. Return true.
  4. Call the default [[DefineOwnProperty]] internal method ([ECMA-262], section 8.12.9) on O passing P, Desc, and Throw as arguments.

4.7.4. Platform object [[Delete]] method

The internal [[Delete]] method of every platform object O that implements an interface which supports indexed or named properties MUST behave as follows when called with property name P and boolean flag Throw. The term “Reject” is used as defined in 4.7.3 above.

  1. If O supports indexed properties and P is an array index property name, then:
    1. Let index be the result of calling ToUint32(P).
    2. If index is not a supported property index, then return true.
    3. If O does not implement an interface with an index deleter, then Reject.
    4. Let operation be the operation used to declare the index deleter.
    5. If operation was defined without an identifier, then:
      1. Perform the steps listed in the interface description to delete an existing indexed property with index as the index.
      2. If the steps indicated that the deletion failed, then Reject.
    6. Otherwise, operation was defined with an identifier:
      1. Perform the steps listed in description of operation with index as the only argument value.
      2. If operation was declared with a return type of boolean and the steps returned false, then Reject.
    7. Return true.
  2. If O supports named properties and the result of calling the named property visibility algorithm with property name P and object O is true, then:
    1. If O does not to implement an interface with an name deleter, then Reject.
    2. Let operation be the operation used to declare the name deleter.
    3. If operation was defined without an identifier, then:
      1. Perform the steps listed in the interface description to delete an existing named property with P as the name.
      2. If the steps indicated that the deletion failed, then Reject.
    4. Otherwise, operation was defined with an identifier:
      1. Perform the steps listed in description of operation with P as the only argument value.
      2. If operation was declared with a return type of boolean and the steps returned false, then Reject.
    5. Return true.
  3. If O has an own property with name P, then:
    1. If the property is not configurable, then Reject.
    2. Otherwise, remove the property from O.
  4. Return true.

4.7.5. Platform object [[Call]] method

The internal [[Call]] method of every platform object O that implements an interface I with at least one caller MUST behave as follows, assuming arg0..n−1 is the list of argument values passed to [[Call]]:

  1. Initialize S to the effective overload for callers on I and with argument count n (for the ECMAScript language binding).
  2. Set S to be the result of passing S and arg0..n−1 to the overload resolution algorithm.
  3. If S is empty, throw a TypeError.
  4. If S contains more than one entry, then the call is ambiguous. Remove all but one entry from S according to the rules specified in the description of interface I, or arbitrarily if no such rules exist.
  5. Let op be the operation and t0..m−1 be the type list of the single entry in S.
  6. Let idlarg0..m−1 be a list of IDL values, where idlargi is the result of converting argi to an IDL value.
  7. Perform the actions listed in the description of caller op with idlarg0..m−1 as the argument values. These conversions MUST be done in order from arg0 to argm−1.
  8. Return the result of converting the return value from those actions to an ECMAScript value of the type op is declared to return (or undefined if op is declared to return void).

4.7.6. Property enumeration

This document does not define a complete property enumeration order for all platform objects implementing interfaces (or for platform objects representing exceptions). However, if a platform object implements an interface that supports indexed or named properties, then properties on the object MUST be enumerated in the following order:

  1. If the object supports indexed properties, then the object’s supported property indices are enumerated first, in numerical order.
  2. If the object supports named properties, then the object’s supported property names are enumerated next, in the order given in the definition of the set of supported property names.
  3. Finally, any enumerable own properties or properties from the object’s prototype chain are then enumerated, in no defined order.
Note

Future versions of the ECMAScript specification may define a total order for property enumeration.

4.8. User objects implementing interfaces

As described in section 3.8 above, some interfaces can be implemented in script by an ECMAScript native object. The following cases determine whether a given native object is considered to be a user object implementing an interface with the required characteristics:

  • If the [Callback=FunctionOnly] extended attribute appears on the interface, then the native object is considered to implement that interface only if it is a Function object. The Function object itself is the implementation of the operation (or set of overloaded operations, if multiple operations with the same identifier are defined on the interface).
  • Otherwise, if the interface is a single operation interface but the [Callback] extended attribute on the interface does not have the FunctionOnly argument, then any native object is considered to implement that interface. The implementation of the operation (or set of overloaded operations) is as follows:
    • If the native object is a Function object and the [Callback] extended attribute does not have the PropertyOnly argument, then the implementation of the operation (or set of overloaded operations) is the Function object itself.
    • Otherwise, the native object is not a Function object or the interface did have [Callback=PropertyOnly] specified on it. The implementation of the operation (or set of overloaded operations) is the result of invoking the internal [[Get]] method on the native object with a property name that is the identifier of the operation.
  • Otherwise, the interface is not a single operation interface. Any native object is considered to implement the interface. For each operation declared on the interface with a given identifier, the implementation is the result of invoking [[Get]] on the native object with a property name that is that identifier.

A user object’s operation is called with a list of IDL argument values idlarg0..n−1 by following the algorithm below. The callback this value is the value to use as the this value when calling the native object’s operation implementation internal [[Call]] method. By default, the native object itself is used as the callback this value, however this MAY be overridden by other specifications.

  1. Let O be the native object that is the user object implementing the interface.
  2. Let X be the implementation of the operation. If O is a Function object that itself is considered to be the implementation of the operation, then X is O. Otherwise, X is the result of calling the internal [[Get]] method of O with the identifier of the operation as the property name.
  3. If Type(X) is not Object, throw a TypeError exception.
  4. If X does not implement the internal [[Call]] method, throw a TypeError exception.
  5. Let arg0..n−1 be a list of ECMAScript values, where argi is the result of converting idlargi to an ECMAScript value.
  6. Let R be the result of invoking the [[Call]] method of X, providing the callback this value as the this value and arg0..n−1 as the argument values.
  7. If the operation’s return type is void, return.
  8. Return the result of converting R to an IDL value of the same type as the operation’s return type.

Note that native ECMAScript objects need not have properties corresponding to constants on them to be considered as user objects implementing interfaces that happen to have constants declared on them.

The value of a user object’s attribute is retrieved using the following algorithm:

  1. Let O be the native object that is the user object implementing the interface.
  2. Let P be the identifier of the attribute.
  3. Let R be the result of invoking the [[Get]] method of O with property name P.
  4. Return the result of converting R to an IDL value of the same type as the attribute’s type.

The value of a user object’s attribute is set using the following algorithm:

  1. Let O be the native object that is the user object implementing the interface.
  2. Let P be the identifier of the attribute.
  3. Let V be the IDL value to be assigned to the attribute.
  4. Let W be the result of converting V to an ECMAScript value.
  5. Invoke the [[Put]] method of O with property name P and value W.

4.9. Exceptions

For every exception that is not declared with the [NoInterfaceObject] extended attribute, a corresponding property MUST exist on the exception’s relevant namespace object. The name of the property is the identifier of the exception, and its value is an object called the exception interface object, which provides access to any constants that have been associated with the exception. The property has the attributes { [[Writable]]: true, [[Enumerable]]: false, [[Configurable]]: true }.

4.9.1. Exception interface object

The exception interface object for a given exception MUST be a function object.

If any constants have been declared on the exception, then the exception interface object will have properties corresponding to these constants as described in section 4.9.3 below.

The exception interface object MUST also have a property named prototype with attributes { [[Writable]]: false, [[Enumerable]]: false, [[Configurable]]: false } whose value is an object called the exception interface prototype object. This object also provides access to the constants that are declared on the exception.

4.9.1.1. Exception interface object [[Call]] method

The internal [[Call]] method of an exception interface object MUST behave as follows, assuming arg0..n−1 is the list of argument values passed to the function, and E is the exception corresponding to the exception interface object:

  1. Let O be a new object whose [[Prototype]] internal property is set to the exception interface object and whose [[Class]] internal property is set to the identifier of E.
  2. If n > 0, then:
    1. Let S be the result of calling ToString(arg0).
    2. Call the [[DefineOwnProperty]] internal method of O passing “message”, Property Descriptor { [[Value]]: S, [[Writable]]: true, [[Enumerable]]: false, [[Configurable]]: true }, and false as arguments.
  3. Return O.

4.9.2. Exception interface prototype object

There MUST exist an exception interface prototype object for every exception defined, regardless of whether the exception was declared with the [NoInterfaceObject] extended attribute. The exception interface prototype object for a particular exception has properties that correspond to the constants and exception fields defined on the exception. These properties are described in more detail in sections 4.9.3 and 4.9.4, below.

The exception interface prototype object for a given exception MUST have an internal [[Prototype]] property whose value is as follows:

  • If the exception is declared to inherit from another exception, then the value of the internal [[Prototype]] property is the exception interface prototype object for the inherited exception.
  • Otherwise, the exception is not declared to inherit from another exception. The value of the internal [[Prototype]] property is the Error prototype object ([ECMA-262], section 15.11.3.1).

There MUST be a property named “name” on the exception interface prototype object with attributes { [[Writable]]: true, [[Enumerable]]: false, [[Configurable]]: true } and whose value is the identifier of the exception.

If the [NoInterfaceObject] extended attribute was not specified on the exception, then there MUST also be a property named “constructor” on the exception interface prototype object with attributes { [[Writable]]: true, [[Enumerable]]: false, [[Configurable]]: true } and whose value is a reference to the exception interface object for the exception.

4.9.3. Constants

For each constant defined on the exception, there MUST be a corresponding property on the exception interface object, if it exists, if the identifier of the constant is not “prototype”. The property has the following characteristics:

  • The name of the property is the identifier of the constant.
  • The value of the property is the ECMAScript value that is equivalent to the constant’s IDL value, according to the rules in section 4.2 above.
  • The property has attributes { [[Writable]]: false, [[Enumerable]]: true, [[Configurable]]: false }.

In addition, a property with the same characteristics MUST exist on the exception interface prototype object, if the identifier of the constant is not “constructor”.

4.9.4. Exception fields

For each exception field whose identifier is not “constructor” that is defined on the exception, there MUST be a corresponding property on the exception interface prototype object, whose characteristics are as follows:

  • The name of the property is the identifier of the exception field.
  • The property has attributes { [[Get]]: G, [[Enumerable]]: true, [[Configurable]]: true }, where G is the exception field getter, defined below.
  • The exception field getter is a Function object whose behavior when invoked is as follows:
    1. Let O be the result of calling ToObject on the this value.
    2. If O is not a platform object representing an exception for the exception on which the exception field was declared, then throw a TypeError.
    3. Let idlValue be the IDL value of O’s exception field.
    4. Let V be the result of converting the idlValue to an ECMAScript value.
    5. Return V.
    The value of the Function object’s length property is the Number value 0.

4.10. Exception objects

Objects representing particular IDL exceptions are platform objects. Such objects can only represent a single exception, and also cannot simultaneously represent an exception and implement an interface.

Every platform object representing an exception in ECMAScript is associated with a global environment, just as the initial objects are. When an exception object is created by calling an exception interface object, either normally or as part of a new expression, then the global environment the newly created object is associated with is the same one that the exception interface object itself is associated with.

The value of the internal [[Prototype]] property of the exception object MUST be the exception interface prototype object from the global environment the exception object is associated with.

The value of the internal [[Class]] property of the exception object MUST be the identifier of the exception.

4.11. Throwing exceptions

First, we define the current global environment as the result of running the following algorithm:

  1. Let F be the Function object used as the this value in the top-most call on the ECMAScript call stack where F corresponds to an IDL attribute, operation, indexed property, named property, constructor, named constructor, stringifier, exception constructor or exception field getter.
  2. If F corresponds to an attribute, operation or stringifier, then return the global environment associated with the interface that definition appears on.
  3. Otherwise, if F corresponds to an indexed or named property, then return the global environment associated with the interface that the index or name getter, setter, creator or deleter was defined on.
  4. Otherwise, if F is a named constructor for an interface, or is an interface object for an interface that is a constructor, then return the global environment associated with that interface.
  5. Otherwise, if F is an exception field getter, then return the global environment associated with the exception on which the exception field was defined.
  6. Otherwise, F is an exception interface object that is a constructor. Return the global environment associated with that exception.

When an exception of type E is to be thrown, with an optional message M, the following steps MUST be followed:

  1. Let G be the current global environment.
  2. Let X be the exception interface object for E from the global environment G.
  3. Let args be a list of ECMAScript values. If the optional message M was specified, then this list has a single element whose value is the result of converting M to a String value. Otherwise, the list is empty.
  4. Let O be the result of running the steps in section 4.9.1.1 above with X as the exception and args as the argument list.
  5. Throw O.
Note

The above algorithm does not restrict platform objects representing exceptions propagating out of a Function to be ones that are associated with the global environment where that Function object originated. For example, consider the IDL:

IDL
exception NumberError { };

interface A {

  /**
   * Calls computeSquareRoot on m, passing x as its argument.
   */
  float doComputation(in MathUtils m, in float x);
};

interface MathUtils {
  /**
   * If x is negative, throws a NumberError exception.  Otherwise, returns
   * the square root of x.
   */
  float computeSquareRoot(in float x);
};

If we pass a MathUtils object from a different global environment to doComputation, then the exception thrown will be from that global environment:

ECMAScript

var a = getA();                          // An A object from this global environment.
var m = otherWindow.getMathUtils();      // A MathUtils object from a different global environment.

a instanceof Object;                     // Evaluates to true.
m instanceof Object;                     // Evaluates to false.
m instanceof otherWindow.Object;         // Evaluates to true.

try {
  a.doComputation(m, -1);
} catch (e) {
  e instanceof NumberError;              // Evaluates to false.
  e instanceof otherWindow.NumberError;  // Evaluates to true.
}

Any requirements in this document to throw an instance of an ECMAScript built-in Error MUST use the built-in from the current global environment.

4.12. Handling exceptions

None of the algorithms or processing requirements in the ECMAScript language binding catch ECMAScript exceptions. Whenever an ECMAScript Function is invoked due to requirements in this section and that Function ends due to an exception being thrown, that exception MUST propagate to the caller, and if not caught there, to its caller, and so on.

Example

The following IDL fragment defines two interfaces and an exception. The valueOf attribute on ExceptionThrower is defined to throw an exception whenever an attempt is made to get its value.

IDL
interface Dahut {
  attribute DOMString type;
};

exception SomeException {
};

interface ExceptionThrower {
  // This attribute always throws a SomeException and never returns a value.
  attribute long valueOf getraises(SomeException);
};

Assuming an ECMAScript implementation supporting this interface, the following code demonstrates how exceptions are handled:

ECMAScript
var d = getDahut();              // Obtain an instance of Dahut.
var et = getExceptionThrower();  // Obtain an instance of ExceptionThrower.

try {
  d.type = { toString: function() { throw "abc" } };
} catch (e) {
  // The string "abc" is caught here, since as part of the conversion
  // from the native object to a string, the anonymous function
  // was invoked, and none of the [[DefaultValue]], ToPrimitive or
  // ToString algorithms are defined to catch the exception.
}

try {
  d.type = { toString: { } };
} catch (e) {
  // An exception is caught here, since an attempt is made to invoke
  // [[Call]] on the native object that is the value of toString
  // property.
}

d.type = et;
// An uncaught SomeException exception is thrown here, since the
// [[DefaultValue]] algorithm attempts to get the value of the
// "valueOf" property on the ExceptionThrower object.  The exception
// propagates out of this block of code.

5. Java binding

This section describes how definitions written with the IDL defined in section 3 correspond to particular constructs in Java 5 [JLS3].

5.1. Names

Since Java has a number of reserved words in the language, some identifiers of Java constructs corresponding to IDL definitions need to be escaped to avoid conflicts. A name is Java escaped as follows:

  • If the name is a Java reserved word, then the Java escaped name is the name prefixed with a U+005F LOW LINE ("_") character.
  • Otherwise, the name is not a Java reserved word. The Java escaped name is simply the name.
Note

At the time of publication, the list of Java reserved words is the following: abstract, assert, boolean, break, byte, case, catch, char, class, const, continue, default, do, double, else, enum, extends, final, finally, float, for, goto, if, implements, import, instanceof, int, interface, long, native, new, package, private, protected, public, return, short, static, strictfp, super, switch, synchronized, this, throw, throws, transient, try, void, volatile, while.

5.2. Java type mapping

This section describes how types in the IDL map to types in Java.

Each sub-section below describes how values of a given IDL type are represented in Java. For each IDL type, it is described how Java values are converted to an IDL value when passed as an argument to a Java method (corresponding to an operation or attribute). Conversely, it is described how IDL values of that type are converted to Java values when being used as the value of a Java final variable (corresponding to a constant) or when returned from a Java method (corresponding to an operation, attribute or exception field).

5.2.1. any

The any IDL type corresponds to a Java java.lang.Object value.

How to convert a Java value to an IDL any value depends on the type of the Java value:

A java.lang.Boolean object
The IDL value is obtained by converting the result of calling the booleanValue() method on the java.lang.Boolean object to an IDL boolean value.
A java.lang.Byte object
The IDL value is obtained by converting the result of calling the byteValue() method on the java.lang.Byte object to an IDL byte value.
A java.lang.Short object
The IDL value is obtained by converting the result of calling the shortValue() method on the java.lang.Short object to an IDL short value.
A java.lang.Integer object
The IDL value is obtained by converting the result of calling the intValue() method on the java.lang.Integer object to an IDL long value.
A java.lang.Long object
The IDL value is obtained by converting the result of calling the longValue() method on the java.lang.Long object to an IDL long long value.
A java.lang.Float object
The IDL value is obtained by converting the result of calling the floatValue() method on the java.lang.Float object to an IDL float value.
A java.lang.Double object
The IDL value is obtained by converting the result of calling the doubleValue() method on the java.lang.Double object to an IDL float value.
A java.lang.String object
The IDL value is obtained by converting the java.lang.String object to an IDL DOMString value.
An array object
The IDL value is the IDL sequence obtained by converting the Java array object to a sequence, as described in section 5.2.19 below.
An object that implements a Java array interface
The IDL value is the IDL array obtained by converting the Java object to an array, as described in section 5.2.20 below.
An object of any other class
The IDL value is an object value that references the same object.
null
The IDL value is the null object? value.

How to convert an IDL any value to a Java java.lang.Object value depends on the actual type of the IDL value:

A value of a primitive type

The Java value is the result of converting the IDL value of the given type to a Java value, and then passing that value to the static method according to the following table:

IDL type Method
boolean java.lang.Boolean.valueOf(boolean)
byte java.lang.Byte.valueOf(byte)
octet java.lang.Byte.valueOf(byte)
short java.lang.Short.valueOf(short)
unsigned short java.lang.Short.valueOf(short)
long java.lang.Integer.valueOf(int)
unsigned long java.lang.Integer.valueOf(int)
long long java.lang.Long.valueOf(long)
unsigned long long java.lang.Long.valueOf(long)
float java.lang.Float.valueOf(float)
double java.lang.Double.valueOf(double)
An IDL value of any other type
The Java value is the result of converting the IDL value to a Java value.

5.2.2. void

The only place that the void type may appear in IDL is as the return type of an operation. Methods on Java objects that implement an operation whose IDL specifies a void return type MUST be declared to have a return type of void.

5.2.3. boolean

IDL boolean values are represented by Java boolean values.

The result of converting a Java boolean value to an IDL value is the IDL boolean that represents the same truth value as the Java boolean.

The result of converting an IDL boolean value to a Java value is the Java boolean that represents the same truth value as the IDL boolean.

5.2.4. byte

IDL byte values are represented by Java byte values.

The result of converting a Java byte value to an IDL value is the IDL byte that represents the same numeric value as the Java byte.

The result of converting an IDL byte value to a Java value is the Java byte that represents the same numeric value as the IDL byte.

5.2.5. octet

IDL octet values are represented by Java byte values. Note that while the IDL octet type is unsigned, with a range of [0, 255], the Java byte type is signed, with a range of [−128, 127].

Conversion of an octet value to a byte is performed as follows:

  1. Let x be the octet value to convert.
  2. If x < 128, return the byte whose value is x.
  3. Otherwise x ≥ 128. Return the byte whose value is x − 256.
Note

In Java this is the same as having the octet value stored in an int and casting it to a byte.

Conversion of a byte to an octet is performed as follows:

  1. Let x be the byte value to decode.
  2. If x ≥ 0, return the octet whose value is x.
  3. Otherwise x < 0. Return the octet whose value is x + 256.
Note

In Java this is the same as performing a bit-wise AND of the byte value with the int constant 0xff.

5.2.6. short

IDL short values are represented by Java short values.

The result of converting a Java short value to an IDL value is the IDL short that represents the same numeric value as the Java short.

The result of converting an IDL short value to a Java value is the Java short that represents the same numeric value as the IDL short.

5.2.7. unsigned short

IDL unsigned short values are represented by Java short values. Note that while the IDL unsigned short type is unsigned, with a range of [0, 65535], the Java short type is signed, with a range of [−32768, 32767].

Conversion of an IDL unsigned short value to a Java short is performed as follows:

  1. Let x be the IDL unsigned short value to convert.
  2. If x < 32768, return the Java short whose value is x.
  3. Otherwise x ≥ 32768. Return the Java short whose value is x − 65536.
Note

In Java this is the same as having the unsigned short value stored in an int and casting it to a short.

Conversion of a Java short to an IDL unsigned short value is performed as follows:

  1. Let x be the Java short value to decode.
  2. If x ≥ 0, return the IDL unsigned short whose value is x.
  3. Otherwise x < 0. Return the IDL unsigned short whose value is x + 65536.
Note

In Java this is the same as performing a bit-wise AND of the short value with the int constant 0xffff.

5.2.8. long

IDL long values are represented by Java int values.

The result of converting a Java int value to an IDL value is the IDL long that represents the same numeric value as the Java int.

The result of converting an IDL long value to a Java value is the Java int that represents the same numeric value as the IDL short.

5.2.9. unsigned long

IDL unsigned long values are represented by Java int values. Note that while the IDL unsigned long type is unsigned, with a range of [0, 4294967295], the Java int type is signed, with a range of [−2147483648, 2147483647].

Conversion of an IDL unsigned long value to a Java int is performed as follows:

  1. Let x be the IDL unsigned long value to convert.
  2. If x < 2147483648, return the Java int whose value is x.
  3. Otherwise x ≥ 2147483648. Return the Java int whose value is x − 4294967296.
Note

In Java this is the same as having the unsigned long value stored in a Java long and casting it to an int.

Conversion of a Java int to an IDL unsigned long value is performed as follows:

  1. Let x be the Java int value to decode.
  2. If x ≥ 0, return the IDL unsigned long whose value is x.
  3. Otherwise x < 0. Return the IDL unsigned long whose value is x + 4294967296.
Note

In Java this is the same as performing a bit-wise AND of the int value with the long constant 0xffffffffL.

5.2.10. long long

IDL long long values are represented by Java long values.

The result of converting a Java long value to an IDL value is the IDL long long that represents the same numeric value as the Java long.

The result of converting an IDL long long value to a Java value is the Java long that represents the same numeric value as the IDL long long.

5.2.11. unsigned long long

IDL unsigned long long values are represented by Java long values. Note that while the IDL unsigned long long type is unsigned, with a range of [0, 18446744073709551615], the Java long type is signed, with a range of [−9223372036854775808, 9223372036854775807].

Conversion of an IDL unsigned long long value to a Java long is performed as follows:

  1. Let x be the IDL unsigned long long value to convert.
  2. If x < 18446744073709551616, return the Java long whose value is x.
  3. Otherwise x ≥ 18446744073709551616. Return the Java long whose value is x − 18446744073709551615.

Conversion of a Java long to an IDL unsigned long long value is performed as follows:

  1. Let x be the Java long value to decode.
  2. If x ≥ 0, return the IDL unsigned long long whose value is x.
  3. Otherwise x < 0. Return the IDL unsigned long long whose value is x + 18446744073709551615.

5.2.12. float

IDL float values are represented by Java float values.

The result of converting a Java float value to an IDL value is the IDL float that represents the same numeric value as the Java float.

The result of converting an IDL float value to a Java value is the Java float that represents the same numeric value as the IDL float.

5.2.13. double

IDL double values are represented by Java double values.

The result of converting a Java double value to an IDL value is the IDL double that represents the same numeric value as the Java double.

The result of converting an IDL double value to a Java value is the Java double that represents the same numeric value as the IDL double.

5.2.14. DOMString

IDL DOMString values are represented by Java java.lang.String reference values.

A Java java.lang.String reference value is converted to an IDL DOMString value as follows:

  • If the value is null, then throw a java.lang.NullPointerException.
  • Otherwise, return the IDL DOMString value that represents the same sequence of 16 bit code units as the one the Java java.lang.String value represents.

The result of converting an IDL DOMString value to a Java java.lang.String value is a java.lang.String object that represents the same sequence of characters that the IDL DOMString represents.

5.2.15. object

IDL object values are represented by Java java.lang.Object reference values.

A Java java.lang.Object reference value is converted to an IDL object value as follows:

  • If the value is null, then throw a java.lang.NullPointerException.
  • Otherwise, return the IDL object value that is a reference to the same object.

The result of converting an IDL object value to a Java value is a Java java.lang.Object value that is a reference to the same object.

5.2.16. Interface types

IDL interface type values are represented by Java references of the corresponding Java interface type. (See section 5.4 below for how IDL interfaces have corresponding Java interfaces.)

A Java value V is converted to an IDL interface type value by running the following algorithm (where I is the interface):

  1. If V is a platform object that implements I, then return the IDL interface type value that represents a reference to that platform object.
  2. If V is a user object that is considered to implement I according to the rules in section 5.6, then return the IDL interface type value that represents a reference to that user object.
  3. Otherwise, V is an object that implements the Java interface for I but I is not annotated with the [Callback] extended attribute. Throw a java.lang.IllegalArgumentException.

Conversions from IDL interface type values to Java values are performed in the same way as that for the IDL object type.

5.2.17. Dictionary types

IDL dictionary type values are represented by Java references to objects of the java.util.HashMap<java.lang.String,java.lang.Object> class. Each dictionary member that is present corresponds to an entry in the HashMap.

A Java java.util.HashMap<java.lang.String,java.lang.Object> reference value O is converted to an IDL dictionary type value by running the following algorithm (where D is the dictionary):

  1. If O is null, then throw a java.lang.NullPointerException.
  2. Let dict be an empty dictionary value of type D; every dictionary member is initially considered to be not present.
  3. Let dictionaries be a list consisting of D and all of D’s inherited dictionaries, in order from least to most derived.
  4. For each dictionary dictionary in dictionaries, in order:
    1. For each dictionary member member declared on dictionary, in order:
      1. Let key be the identifier of member.
      2. Let javaKey be the result of converting key to a java.lang.String.
      3. Let present be the result of calling the containsKey method on O with javaKey as the only argument.
      4. If present is true, then:
        1. Let value be the result of calling the get method on O javaKey as the only argument.
        2. Let idlValue be the result of converting value to an IDL value whose type is the type member is declared to be of.
        3. Set the dictionary member on dict with key name key to the value idlValue. This dictionary member is considered to be present.
  5. Return dict.

An IDL dictionary type value V is converted to a Java java.util.HashMap<java.lang.String,java.lang.Object> reference value by running the following algorithm (where D is the dictionary):

  1. Let O be a new java.util.HashMap<java.lang.String,java.lang.Object> object.
  2. Let dictionaries be a list consisting of D and all of D’s inherited dictionaries, in order from least to most derived.
  3. For each dictionary dictionary in dictionaries, in order:
    1. For each dictionary member member declared on dictionaries, in order:
      1. Let key be the identifier of member.
      2. Let javaKey be the result of converting key to a java.lang.String.
      3. If the dictionary member named key is present on V, then:
        1. Let idlValue be the value of member on V.
        2. Let value be the result of converting idlValue to a Java value as if value were an IDL any value.
        3. Call the put method on O with arguments javaKey and value.
  4. Return O.

5.2.18. Nullable types — T?

IDL nullable type values are represented with Java object references of a particular class, as determined by the table below:

Nullable type Java class Method to get value
boolean? java.lang.Boolean booleanValue()
byte? java.lang.Byte byteValue()
octet? java.lang.Byte byteValue()
short? java.lang.Short shortValue()
unsigned short? java.lang.Short shortValue()
long? java.lang.Integer intValue()
unsigned long? java.lang.Integer intValue()
long long? java.lang.Long longValue()
unsigned long long? java.lang.Long longValue()
float? java.lang.Float floatValue()
double? java.lang.Double doubleValue()
DOMString? java.lang.String
Interface type T? The Java interface corresponding to IDL type T
Dictionary type T? java.util.HashMap<java.lang.String,java.lang.Object>
sequence<T>? U[], where U is the Java type used to represent the IDL type T
T[]? The Java array interface for IDL type T

How to convert a Java value of one of the above classes to an IDL nullable type T? depends on the object reference value and the type T:

If the object reference value is null
The IDL value is the null T? value.
If the value is not an object of the right type for T according to the table above
Throw a java.lang.IllegalArgumentException.
If T is a primitive type
Let method be the method indicated in the table above for type T. The IDL value is a T? whose value is obtained by converting the result of calling method on the object to type T.
Anything else
The IDL value is a T? whose value is obtained by converting the object reference value to type T.

How to convert an IDL nullable type value to a Java value depends on its value and the inner type:

If the IDL value is null
The Java value is null.
If the IDL value is a non-null nullable primitive value

The Java value is the result of converting the IDL inner type to a Java value, and then passing that value to the static method according to the following table, where T is the IDL inner type:

T Method
boolean java.lang.Boolean.valueOf(boolean)
byte java.lang.Byte.valueOf(byte)
octet java.lang.Byte.valueOf(byte)
short java.lang.Short.valueOf(short)
unsigned short java.lang.Short.valueOf(short)
long java.lang.Integer.valueOf(int)
unsigned long java.lang.Integer.valueOf(int)
long long java.lang.Long.valueOf(long)
unsigned long long java.lang.Long.valueOf(long)
float java.lang.Float.valueOf(float)
double java.lang.Double.valueOf(double)
If the IDL value is a non-null DOMString? value
The Java value is a java.lang.String object representing the same sequence of 16 bit code units as the DOMString? value.
If the IDL value is a non-null sequence<T>? value
The Java value is the result of converting the IDL sequence value to a Java array object, as described in section 5.2.19 below.
If the IDL value is a non-null T[]? value
The Java value is the result of converting the IDL array value to a Java object implementing the Java array interface for T, as described in section 5.2.20 below.
If the IDL value is a non-null nullable dictionary type value
The Java value is the result of converting the IDL dictionary value to a Java java.util.HashMap<java.lang.String,java.lang.Object> object, as described in section 5.2.17 above.
If the IDL value is a non-null nullable interface type or object? value
The Java value is a reference to the same object.

5.2.19. Sequences — sequence<T>

IDL sequence<T> values are represented by Java arrays of type U, where U is the Java type used to represent the IDL type T.

A Java array A of type U is converted to an IDL sequence<T> as follows:

  1. If A is null, then throw a java.lang.NullPointerException.
  2. Let n be the length of the array A.
  3. Initialize S0..n−1 to be an IDL sequence with elements of type T, where each element is uninitialized.
  4. Initialize i to be 0.
  5. While i < n:
    1. Let E be the value value of A at index i.
    2. Set Si to the result of converting E to an IDL value of type T.
    3. Set i to i + 1.
  6. Return S.

An IDL sequence value S0..n−1 of type sequence<T> is converted to a Java array of type U object as follows:

  1. Let A be a new Java array object with element type U and length n.
  2. Initialize i to be 0.
  3. While i < n:
    1. Let E be the result of converting Si to a Java value of type U.
    2. Set element i of the array A to the value E.
    3. Set i to i + 1.
  4. Return A.

A Java object implementing an interface with an operation declared to return a sequence<T> value MUST NOT return null from the corresponding method. Similarly, a getter method for an IDL attribute MUST NOT return null if the attribute is declared to be of type sequence<T>.

5.2.20. Arrays — T[]

IDL T[] values are represented by Java objects implementing a particular interface, known as the Java array interface, depending on the type T.

For each of the primitive types there MUST exist a corresponding Java array interface of the following form:

Java
package org.w3c.dom;

public interface PrimitiveNameArray {
  int getLength();
  void setLength(int length);
  PrimitiveType getElement(int index);
  void setElement(int index, PrimitiveType value);
}

where PrimitiveName is the type name of the primitive type and PrimitiveType is the Java type used to represent it.

Example

For example, the Java array interface for the octet[] type is:

Java
package org.w3c.dom;

public interface OctetArray {
  int getLength();
  void setLength(int length);
  byte getElement(int index);
  void setElement(int index, byte value);
}

There MUST also exist the following interface, org.w3c.dom.ObjectArray<E>:

Java
package org.w3c.dom;

public interface ObjectArray<E> {
  int getLength();
  void setLength(int length);
  E getElement(int index);
  void setElement(int index, E value);
}

This interface, parameterized by the Java type used to represent array element type T, is the corresponding Java array interface for T.

Example

For example, the Java array interface for the DOMString[]?[] type is org.w3c.dom.ObjectArray<java.lang.ObjectArray<java.lang.String>>.

A Java object that implements a Java array interface represents a given IDL array value of type T[]. The methods on the object that implement that interface MUST behave as follows:

getLength()

This method returns the current length of the IDL array value.

setLength(length)

When called on an object representing a variable length array, this method sets the length of the array to length. When the array is lengthened, the new elements are set to the IDL value that results from converting to an IDL value the default value of the Java type that T corresponds to ([JLS3], section 4.12.5).

When called on an object representing a fixed length array, this method throws a java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException.

getElement(index)

This method returns the IDL value of type T at the represented array’s index index converted to a Java value.

setElement(index, value)

When called on an object representing an array that is not read only, this method sets the IDL value at the represented array’s index index to the result of converting value to an IDL value of type T.

When called on an object representing an array that is read only, this method throws a java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException.

A Java reference value O for an object implementing a Java array interface is converted to an IDL array value as follows:

  • If O is null, then throw a java.lang.NullPointerException.
  • Otherwise, if O is an object implementing a Java array interface corresponding to a primitive type, then the IDL array value is the array value that O represents. The type of the IDL array value is T[], where T is the primitive type.
  • Otherwise, if O is an object implementing org.w3c.dom.ObjectArray<E>, then the IDL array value is the array value that O represents. The type of the IDL array value is the IDL type that E corresponds to.

An IDL array value A of type T[] is converted to a Java value whose type is an object implementing the Java array interface corresponding to T, as follows:

  • If A is already represented by an object implementing a Java array interface, then the Java value is that object.
  • Otherwise, the Java value is newly created object implementing the Java array interface that corresponds to T.

5.2.21. Date

IDL Date values are represented by Java java.util.Date reference values.

A Java java.lang.Date reference value is converted to an IDL Date value as follows:

  • If the value is null, then throw a java.lang.NullPointerException.
  • Let m be the millisecond that the java.util.Date object represents.
  • If m cannot be represented by an IDL Date value, then return the undefined IDL Date value.
  • Return the IDL Date value that represents m.

An IDL Date value is converted to a java.lang.Date reference value as follows:

  • If the value is the undefined IDL Date value, then return a newly created java.util.Date object as if by calling new java.util.Date(Long.MIN_VALUE).
  • Otherwise, return a newly created java.util.Date object that represents the same millisecond that the IDL Date value does.

5.3. Modules

Every IDL module corresponds to a Java package, whose name is the result of taking the module’s prefixed name, replacing every occurrence of the string “::” with “.”, and then removing the leading “.”.

Definitions inside an IDL module correspond to Java constructs declared to be in the package for that module.

Example

The following IDL fragment will result in four Java interfaces existing: org.w3c.dom.Document, org.w3c.dom.html.HTMLDocument, org.foo.FooDocument and org.foo.ext.ExtendedFooDocument.

IDL
module dom {
  interface Document {
    // ...
  };
};

module html {
  interface HTMLDocument {
    // ...
  };
};

[Prefix=org]
module foo {
  interface FooDocument {
    // ...
  };

  module ext {
    interface ExtendedFooDocument {
      // ...
    };
  };
};

5.4. Interfaces

A conforming Java implementation MUST have a public Java interface corresponding to to every IDL interface that is supported, whose name is the Java escaped identifier of the IDL interface and which resides in the Java package corresponding to the interface’s enclosing module (or the default package, if there is no enclosing module).

The Java interface for an interface A MUST be declared to extend the following Java interfaces:

  • the Java interface that corresponds to the interface from which A inherits, if it does inherit from one, and
  • the Java interfaces that correspond to each interface on the right-hand side of an implements statement where A is on the left-hand side.

If the IDL interface has one or more static operations declared on it, then there MUST also exist a public, abstract Java class, whose name is the concatenation of the identifier of the IDL interface and the string "Utils", and which also resides in the Java package corresponding to the interface’s enclosing module (or the default package, if there is no enclosing module). This class is known as the utility class for the IDL interface.

5.4.1. Constants

For each constant defined on the IDL interface, there MUST be a corresponding constant declared on the Java interface with the following characteristics:

  • The constant has no modifiers.
  • The type of the constant is the Java type that corresponds to the type of the IDL constant, according to the rules in section 5.2 above.
  • The name of the constant is the Java escaped identifier of the constant.
  • The value of the constant is the result of converting the constant’s IDL value to a Java value, according to the rules in section 5.2 above.

5.4.2. Operations

Each operation defined on the IDL interface, I, will result in one or more methods being declared on the Java interface.

For each kind of operation kind in the set { “regular”, “static” }:

  • For each unique identifier id of the operations of kind kind declared on I:
    • For each entry <optypesany> in the effective overload set for regular operations with identifier id on I and with argument count 0 (for the Java language binding), there MUST exist a method with the following characteristics:
      • If the operation is a regular operation, then the method exists on the Java interface. Otherwise, the operation is a static operation, and it exists on the utility class.
      • The method is declared with modifiers public static final.
      • The return type of the method is the Java type that corresponds to the operation return type, according to the rules in section 5.2 above.
      • The tenative name of the method is the Java escaped identifier of the operation. The name of the method is the tenative name of the method prefixed with the smallest number of U+005F LOW LINE ("_") characters required to make the name not equal to the name of a constant declared on the Java interface (if the operation is a regular operation) and not equal to the name of one of the methods on the java.lang.Object class.
      • The method has an argument for each type, in order, that is in types. The type of method argument j is the Java type that corresponds to the IDL type typesj, according to the rules in section 5.2 above. If the length of types is the length of the argument list op is declared with, and op is a variadic operation, then the method is a variable arity method ([JLS3], section 8.4.1).
      • If op has IDL exceptions listed in the Raises clause, then the method SHOULD have a throws clause specifying all of the Java exception classes that correspond to those IDL exceptions, and no others. Otherwise, if op has no exceptions listed in the Raises clause, then the method SHOULD NOT have a throws clause.
      • An implementation of this method MUST perform the following steps:
        1. Let arg0..n−1 be the list of Java argument values passed to the method.
        2. Let idlarg0..n−1 be a list of IDL values, where idlargi is the result of converting argi to an IDL value of the type that the ith argument is declared to be.
        3. Let R be the result of performing the actions listed in the description of the operation op with idlarg0..n−1 as the argument values.
        4. If the actions performed in the previous step resulted in an exception being thrown, then allow that exception to propagate out from this algorithm. Otherwise, return the result of converting R to a Java value of the type op is declared to return.

5.4.3. Attributes

For each attribute defined on the IDL interface that does not inherit its getter, there MUST be a corresponding getter method declared on the Java interface with the following characteristics:

  • The method has no modifiers.
  • The return type of the method is the Java type that corresponds to the attribute type, according to the rules in section 5.2 above.
  • The tentative name of the method is a U+0067 LATIN SMALL G ("g") character, followed by a U+0065 LATIN SMALL E ("e") character, followed by a U+0074 LATIN SMALL T ("t") character, followed by the first character of the identifier of the attribute uppercased (as if passed to the java.lang.Character.toUpperCase() method), followed by the remaining characters from the identifier of the attribute. The name of the method is the Java escaped tenative name of the method prefixed with the smallest number of U+005F LOW LINE ("_") characters required to make the name not equal to the name of a constant or method declared on the Java interface or one of the methods on the java.lang.Object class.
  • The method has no arguments.
  • An implementation of this method MUST perform the following steps:
    1. Let V be the IDL value that results from performing the actions listed for getting the corresponding attribute in the description of the interface.
    2. If the actions performed in the previous step resulted in an exception being thrown, then allow that exception to propagate out from this algorithm. Otherwise, return the result of converting V to a Java value of the type op is declared to return.

In addition, the method SHOULD have a throws clause specifying all of the Java exception classes that correspond to the IDL exceptions that are listed in the GetRaises clause of the attribute, and no others.

For each attribute defined on the IDL interface that is not read only, there MUST be a corresponding setter method declared on the Java interface with the following characteristics:

  • The method has no modifiers.
  • The return type of the method is void.
  • The tentative name of the method is a U+0073 LATIN SMALL S ("s") character, followed by a U+0065 LATIN SMALL E ("e") character, followed by a U+0074 LATIN SMALL T ("t") character, followed by the first character of the identifier of the attribute uppercased (as if passed to the java.lang.Character.toUpperCase() method), followed by the remaining characters from the identifier of the attribute. The name of the method is the Java escaped tenative name of the method prefixed with the smallest number of U+005F LOW LINE ("_") characters required to make the name not equal to the name of a constant or method declared on the Java interface or one of the methods on the java.lang.Object class.
  • The method has a single argument whose type is the Java type that corresponds to the attribute type, according to the rules in section 5.2 above.
  • An implementation of this method MUST perform the following steps:
    1. Let arg be the Java value that was passed as the argument to the method.
    2. Let idlarg be the result of converting arg to an IDL value of the type the attribute is declared to be.
    3. Perform the actions for setting the corresponding attribute with the value idlarg listed in the description of the interface.
    4. If the actions performed in the previous step resulted in an exception being thrown, then allow that exception to propagate out from this algorithm.

In addition, the method SHOULD have a throws clause specifying all of the Java exception classes that correspond to the IDL exceptions that are listed in the SetRaises clause of the attribute, and no others.

5.5. Platform objects implementing interfaces

A Java platform object that implements an IDL interface MUST be of a Java class which implements the Java interface that corresponds to the IDL interface.

If the IDL interface has a stringifier, the String toString() method MUST be overridden to allow stringification of the object as required by the IDL interface. If the stringifier keyword was used on an attribute A, then, assuming O is the object on which the method was invoked, the behavior of the overridden toString method MUST be as follows:

  1. Let R be the result of invoking the getter method on O that corresponds to the IDL attribute A.
  2. Return R.

Otherwise, if the stringifier keyword was used on an operation O with an identifier, then, assuming O is the object on which the method was invoked, the behavior of the overridden toString method MUST be as follows:

  1. Let R be the result of invoking the method on O that corresponds to the IDL operation O, passing no arguments.
  2. Return R.

Otherwise, if the stringifier keyword was used on an operation without an identifier, then the behavior of the overridden toString() method is the stringification behavior of the IDL interface, as described in the prose for the IDL interface.

5.6. User objects implementing interfaces

A Java user object that implements an IDL interface MUST be of a Java class that implements the Java interface that corresponds to the IDL interface.

5.7. Exceptions

A conforming Java implementation MUST have a Java class corresponding to every IDL exception that is supported, whose name is the Java escaped identifier of the IDL exception and which resides in the Java package corresponding to the exception’s enclosing module.

The Java class MUST have only the public modifier. If the IDL exceptioninherit from another exception, then the Java class MUST be declared to extend the Java class corresponding to that inherited exception. Otherwise, the Java class MUST be declared to extend java.lang.RuntimeException.

The class MUST also have constructors with definitions as follows, where ExceptionName is the name of the class:

Java
public ExceptionName() {
}

public ExceptionName(String message) {
    super(message);
}

public ExceptionName(String message, Throwable cause) {
    super(message, cause);
}

public ExceptionName(Throwable cause) {
    super(cause);
}

5.7.1. Constants

For each constant defined on the exception, there MUST be a corresponding constant declared on the Java class with the following characteristics:

  • The constant has no modifiers.
  • The type of the constant is the Java type that corresponds to the type of the IDL constant, according to the rules in section 5.2 above.
  • The name of the constant is the Java escaped identifier of the constant.
  • The value of the constant is the result of converting the constant’s IDL value to a Java value, according to the rules in section 5.2 above.

5.7.2. Exception fields

For each exception field defined on the exception, there MUST be a corresponding instance variable declared on the Java class with the following characteristics:

  • The instance variable has only the modifier public.
  • The type of the instance variable is the Java type that corresponds to the type of the IDL exception field, according to the rules in section 5.2 above.
  • The name of the instance variable is the Java escaped identifier of the exception field.
  • The instance variable is not declared with an initializer.

5.8. Throwing exceptions

When an exception of type E is to be thrown, with an optional message M, the following steps MUST be followed:

  1. Let C be the corresponding Java class for E.
  2. Let O be the result of constructing a new object of class C. When invoking the constructor, the result of converting M to a java.lang.String object to is used as the constructor's sole argument, if M was specified. If M was not specified, no arguments are passed to the constructor.
  3. Throw O.

6. Common definitions

This section specifies some common definitions that all conforming implementations MUST support.

6.1. DOMTimeStamp

IDL
typedef unsigned long long DOMTimeStamp;

The DOMTimeStamp type is used for representing a number of milliseconds, either as an absolute time (relative to some epoch) or as a relative amount of time. Specifications that use this type will need to define how the number of milliseconds is to be interpreted.

7. Extensibility

This section is informative.

Extensions to language binding requirements can be specified using extended attributes that do not conflict with those defined in this document. Extensions for private, project-specific use should not be included in IDL fragments appearing in other specifications. It is recommended that extensions that are required for use in other specifications be coordinated with the group responsible for work on Web IDL, which at the time of writing is the W3C Web Applications Working Group, for possible inclusion in a future version of this document.

Extensions to any other aspect of the IDL language are strongly discouraged.

8. Referencing this specification

This section is informative.

It is expected that other specifications that define DOM interfaces using a conforming IDL fragment will reference this specification. It is suggested that those specifications include a sentence such as the following, to indicate that the IDL is to be interpreted as described in this specification:

The IDL fragment in Appendix A of this specification must be interpreted as required for conforming IDL fragments, as described in the “Web IDL” specification. [WEBIDL]

In addition, it is suggested that the conformance class for user agents in referencing specifications be linked to the conforming implementation class from this specification:

A conforming FooML user agent must also be a conforming implementation of the IDL fragment in Appendix A of this specification, as described in the “Web IDL” specification. [WEBIDL]

9. Acknowledgements

This section is informative.

The editor would like to thank the following people for contributing to this specification: Glenn Adams, David Andersson, L. David Baron, Robin Berjon, Giovanni Campagna, Brendan Eich, Gorm Haug Eriksen, David Flanagan, Aryeh Gregor, Marcin Hanclik, Jed Hartman, Dominique Hazaël-Massieux, Ian Hickson, Björn Höhrmann, Dimitry Golubovsky, Kartikaya Gupta, James Graham, Magnus Kristiansen, Mark Miller, Lachlan Hunt, Oliver Hunt, Jim Jewett, Anne van Kesteren, Jim Ley, Travis Leithead, Kevin Lindsey, Ms2ger, 岡坂 史紀 (Shiki Okasaka), Simon Pieters, Andrei Popescu, Tim Renouf, Jonas Sicking, Garrett Smith, Sam Sneddon, Maciej Stachowiak, Jeff Walden, Allen Wirfs-Brock, Collin Xu, Boris Zbarsky.

Special thanks also go to Sam Weinig for maintaining this document while the editor was unavailable to do so.

A. IDL grammar

This section defines an LL(1) grammar whose start symbol, Definitions, matches an entire IDL fragment.

Each production in the grammar has on its right hand side either a non-zero sequence of terminal and non-terminal symbols, or an epsilon (ε) which indicates no symbols. Symbols that begin with an uppercase letter are non-terminal symbols. Symbols within quotes are terminal symbols that are matched with the exact text between the quotes. Symbols that begin with a lowercase letter are terminal symbols that are matched by the regular expressions (using Perl 5 regular expression syntax [PERLRE]) as follows:

integer = -?(0([0-7]*|[Xx][0-9A-Fa-f]+)|[1-9][0-9]*)
float = -?(([0-9]+\.[0-9]*|[0-9]*\.[0-9]+)([Ee][+-]?[0-9]+)?|[0-9]+[Ee][+-]?[0-9]+)
identifier = [A-Z_a-z][0-9A-Z_a-z]*
string = "[^"]*"
whitespace = [\t\n\r ]+|[\t\n\r ]*((//.*|/\*.*?\*/)[\t\n\r ]*)+
other = [^\t\n\r 0-9A-Z_a-z]

The tokenizer operates on a sequence of Unicode characters [UNICODE40]. When tokenizing, the longest possible match MUST be used. For example, if the input text is “a1”, it is tokenized as a single identifier, and not as a separate identifier and integer. If the longest possible match could match both an identifier and one of the quoted terminal symbols from the grammar, it MUST be tokenized as the quoted terminal symbol. Thus, the input text “in” is tokenized as the quoted terminal symbol "in" rather than an identifier called “in”.

The IDL syntax is case sensitive, both for the quoted terminal symbols used in the grammar and the values used for identifier terminals. Thus, for example, the input text “Getraises” is tokenized as an identifier rather than the quoted terminal symbol "getraises", an interface with identifier “A” is distinct from one named “a”, and an extended attribute [constructor] will not be recognized as the [Constructor] extended attribute.

Implicitly, the whitespace terminal is allowed between every terminal in the input text being parsed. Such whitespace terminals, which actually encompass both whitespace and comments, are ignored while parsing.

The following LL(1) grammar, starting with Definitions, matches an IDL fragment:

[1]DefinitionsDefinition Definitions
 | ε
[2]DefinitionExtendedAttributeList NormalDefinition
 | PartialInterface
[3]NormalDefinitionModule
 | Interface
 | Dictionary
 | Exception
 | Typedef
 | ImplementsStatement
[4]Module"module" identifier "{" Definitions "}" ";"
[5]Interface"interface" identifier Inheritance "{" InterfaceMembers "}" ";"
[6]PartialInterface"partial" "interface" identifier "{" InterfaceMembers "}" ";"
[7]Inheritance":" ScopedName
 | ε
[8]InterfaceMembersExtendedAttributeList InterfaceMember InterfaceMembers
 | ε
[9]InterfaceMemberConst
 | AttributeOrOperation
[10]Dictionary"dictionary" identifier Inheritance "{" DictionaryMembers "}" ";"
[11]DictionaryMembersExtendedAttributeList DictionaryMember DictionaryMembers
 | ε
[12]DictionaryMemberType identifier DefaultValue ";"
[13]DefaultValue"=" ConstExpr
 | ε
[14]Exception"exception" identifier Inheritance "{" ExceptionMembers "}" ";"
[15]ExceptionMembersExtendedAttributeList ExceptionMember ExceptionMembers
 | ε
[16]Typedef"typedef" Type identifier ";"
[17]ImplementsStatementScopedName "implements" ScopedName ";"
[18]Const"const" ConstType identifier "=" ConstExpr ";"
[19]ConstExprBooleanLiteral
 | integer
 | float
 | string
 | "null"
[20]BooleanLiteral"true"
 | "false"
[21]AttributeOrOperation"stringifier" StringifierAttributeOrOperation
 | Attribute
 | Operation
[22]StringifierAttributeOrOperationAttribute
 | OperationRest
 | ";"
[23]AttributeReadOnly "attribute" AttributeType identifier Get SetRaises ";"
[24]ReadOnly"readonly"
 | ε
[25]GetInheritsGetter
 | GetRaises
 | ε
[26]InheritsGetter"inherits" "getter"
[27]GetRaises"getraises" ExceptionList
[28]SetRaises"setraises" ExceptionList
 | ε
[29]OperationQualifiers OperationRest
[30]Qualifiers"static"
 | "omittable" Specials
 | Specials
[31]SpecialsSpecial Specials
 | ε
[32]Special"getter"
 | "setter"
 | "creator"
 | "deleter"
 | "caller"
[33]OperationRestReturnType OptionalIdentifier "(" ArgumentList ")" Raises ";"
[34]OptionalIdentifieridentifier
 | ε
[35]Raises"raises" ExceptionList
 | ε
[36]ExceptionList"(" ScopedNameList ")"
[37]ArgumentListArgument Arguments
 | ε
[38]Arguments"," Argument Arguments
 | ε
[39]ArgumentExtendedAttributeList In Optional Type Ellipsis identifier
[40]In"in"
 | ε
[41]Optional"optional"
 | ε
[42]Ellipsis"..."
 | ε
[43]ExceptionMemberConst
 | ExceptionField
[44]ExceptionFieldAttributeType identifier ";"
[45]ExtendedAttributeList"[" ExtendedAttribute ExtendedAttributes "]"
 | ε
[46]ExtendedAttributes"," ExtendedAttribute ExtendedAttributes
 | ε
[47]ExtendedAttribute "(" ExtendedAttributeInner ")" ExtendedAttributeRest
 | "[" ExtendedAttributeInner "]" ExtendedAttributeRest
 | "{" ExtendedAttributeInner "}" ExtendedAttributeRest
 | Other ExtendedAttributeRest
[48]ExtendedAttributeRestExtendedAttribute
 | ε
[49]ExtendedAttributeInner "(" ExtendedAttributeInner ")" ExtendedAttributeInner
 | "[" ExtendedAttributeInner "]" ExtendedAttributeInner
 | "{" ExtendedAttributeInner "}" ExtendedAttributeInner
 | OtherOrComma ExtendedAttributeInner
 | ε
[50]Other integer
 | float
 | identifier
 | string
 | other
 | "..."
 | ":"
 | "::"
 | ";"
 | "<"
 | "="
 | ">"
 | "?"
 | "Date"
 | "DOMString"
 | "any"
 | "attribute"
 | "boolean"
 | "byte"
 | "caller"
 | "const"
 | "creator"
 | "deleter"
 | "double"
 | "exception"
 | "false"
 | "float"
 | "getraises"
 | "getter"
 | "implements"
 | "in"
 | "inherits"
 | "interface"
 | "long"
 | "module"
 | "null"
 | "object"
 | "octet"
 | "omittable"
 | "optional"
 | "raises"
 | "sequence"
 | "setraises"
 | "setter"
 | "short"
 | "static"
 | "stringifier"
 | "true"
 | "typedef"
 | "unsigned"
 | "void"
[51]OtherOrCommaOther
 | ","
[52]TypeAttributeType
 | "sequence" "<" Type ">" Null
[53]AttributeTypePrimitiveOrStringType TypeSuffix
 | ScopedName TypeSuffix
 | "object" TypeSuffix
 | "Date" TypeSuffix
 | "any" TypeSuffixStartingWithArray
[54]ConstTypePrimitiveOrStringType Null
[55]PrimitiveOrStringTypeUnsignedIntegerType
 | "boolean"
 | "byte"
 | "octet"
 | "float"
 | "double"
 | "DOMString"
[56]UnsignedIntegerType"unsigned" IntegerType
 | IntegerType
[57]IntegerType"short"
 | "long" OptionalLong
[58]OptionalLong"long"
 | ε
[59]TypeSuffix"[" "]" TypeSuffix
 | "?" TypeSuffixStartingWithArray
 | ε
[60]TypeSuffixStartingWithArray"[" "]" TypeSuffix
 | ε
[61]Null"?"
 | ε
[62]ReturnTypeType
 | "void"
[63]ScopedNameListScopedName ScopedNames
[64]ScopedNames"," ScopedName ScopedNames
 | ε
[65]ScopedNameAbsoluteScopedName
 | RelativeScopedName
[66]AbsoluteScopedName"::" identifier ScopedNameParts
[67]RelativeScopedNameidentifier ScopedNameParts
[68]ScopedNameParts"::" identifier ScopedNameParts
 | ε
[69]ExtendedAttributeNoArgidentifier
[70]ExtendedAttributeArgListidentifier "(" ArgumentList ")"
[71]ExtendedAttributeIdentidentifier "=" identifier
[72]ExtendedAttributeScopedNameidentifier "=" ScopedName
[73]ExtendedAttributeNamedArgListidentifier "=" identifier "(" ArgumentList ")"
Note

The choices listed for the Other non-terminal are all of the terminal symbols except for "(", ")", "[", "]", "{", "}" and ",".

While the ExtendedAttribute non-terminal matches any non-empty sequence of terminal symbols (as long as any parentheses, square brackets or braces are balanced, and the "," token appears only within those balanced brackets), only a subset of those possible sequences are used by the extended attributes defined in this specification — see section 3.10 for the syntaxes that are used by these extended attributes.

B. References

B.1. Normative references

[ECMA-262]
ECMAScript Language Specification, 5th Edition, P. Lakshman and A. Wirfs-Brock, Editors. Ecma International, December 2009. Available at http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm.
[IEEE-754]
IEEE Standard for Binary Floating-Point Arithmetic (ANSI/IEEE Std 754-1985). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1985.
[JLS3]
The Java Language Specification, Third Edition. J. Gosling, et al. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Addison-Wesley, 2005. Available at http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/.
[PERLRE]
Perl regular expressions (Perl 5.8.8). The Perl Foundation, February 2006. Available at http://www.perl.com/doc/manual/html/pod/perlre.html.
[RFC2119]
Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels, S. Bradner. IETF, March 1997. Available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.
[RFC2781]
UTF-16, an encoding of ISO 10646, P. Hoffmann and F. Yergeau. IETF, February 2000. Available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2781.
[UNICODE40]
The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0 or later. The Unicode Consortium. Boston, Massachusetts, Addison-Wesley, 2003. ISBN 0-321-18578-1. Available at http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode4.0.0/.

B.2. Informative references

[DOM3CORE]
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification. A. Le Hors, et al., Editors. World Wide Web Consortium, April 2004. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-DOM-Level-3-Core-20040407/.
[OMGIDL]
CORBA 3.1 – OMG IDL Syntax and Semantics chapter. Object Management Group, January 2008. Available at http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?formal/08-01-04.pdf.
[WIDLNOTE]
Web Interface Definition Language (WIDL). P. Merrick and C. Allen. World Wide Web Consortium, September 1997. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-widl-970922.

C. Changes

The following is a list of substantial changes to the document on each publication.

12 July 2011 – LCWD
  • Added some green boxes illustrating the syntax of the different IDL constructs.

  • Added IDL syntax to declare that a writable attribute inherits its getter behavior from a read only attribute of the same name in on an ancestor interface.

  • Made all interface objects be Function objects, regardless of whether they have a constructor.

  • Added the notion of named properties being “resolved before prototype properties” to handle the Window object’s odd treatment of named properties.

  • Specified attributes of ECMAScript properties corresponding to stringifiers, making them non-enumerable.

  • Introduced the terms “platform object” and “user object” to distinguish between objects provided by the implementation and those created and supplied by the user of an API. Most of mentions of ECMAScript native objects were replaced with “user object” and host objects with “platform object”. Specific requirements on what ECMAScript objects can be passed to platform objects expecting non-[Callback] interface types are now given.

  • Added an [Unforgeable] extended attribute to require properties corresponding to IDL attribtues be non-configurable and to appear as own properties on the object rather than on the prototype.

  • Allowed [Callback] interfaces to inherit from other [Callback] interfaces.

  • Removed array host object prototype objects, since they didn’t have any useful properties on them. Instead, the [[Prototype]] of array host objects are now required to be the Array prototype object.

  • Added a [CopyInheritedPrototype] extended attribute.

  • Added support for partial interface definitions.

  • Removed mixin prototype objects from the ECMAScript binding. At the IDL level, objects may now only implement a single inheritance hierarchy of interfaces, plus any supplemental interfaces that are required due to “implements” statements. Interface prototype objects for interfaces on the left-hand side of an “implements” statement now also get properties for members of the interface on the right-hand side of the statement.

  • Tweaked the ECMAScript overload resolution algorithm so that passing too few arguments will result in an exception being thrown and passing more arguments than the longest overload will mean those extra arguments will be ignored. Distinguishing which overload is called when the overloads have the same argument list length is now performed only on arguments where across all of the overloads, not all of the types at that position are the same.

  • Added a [ReplaceableNamedProperties] extended attribute to control whether named properties on an object can be replaced by assigning to them.

  • Required that ECMAScript host objects that support indexed and named properties and for array host objects refuse to be fixed.

  • Removed the toString property from array host objects, so that the toString inherited from the Array prototype object is used instead.

  • Changed the implementation requirements for ECMAScript host objects that support indexed and named properties, and for array host objects, to use specific [[GetOwnProperty]] and [[DefineOwnProperty]] behavior, instead of in terms of setting and removing own properties on the object.

  • Disallowed sequence and dictionary types from being used as an array element type.

  • Added a [Clamp] extended attribute to control how ECMAScript Number values are converted to IDL integer values.

  • Added the dictionary type and allowed null to be specified as the value of a constant or the default value of a dictionary member.

  • Added a Date IDL type.

  • Point out that special operations for indexed and named properties can be overridden.

  • Added requirements on the property enumeration order for indexed and named properties.

  • Required that multiple ECMAScript global environments have independent copies of interface objects, interface prototype objects, etc., and defined which global environment’s objects are used when an exception is thrown.

  • Disallowed sequence types from being used as attribute types.

  • Removed null from the set of values for interface types, object and array types, allowed those types to be nullable, and updated the overload resolution algorithm to account for these changes.

  • Made calling an ECMAScript Function that corresponds to an IDL operation throw a TypeError if the this value isn't an object that implements the right interface.

  • Add constructors to Java classes corresponding to IDL exceptions.

  • Define what it means to throw an IDL exception with a given message.

  • Added “constructor” properties back to interface prototype objects.

  • Allowed exceptions to inherit from other exceptions, so that they can be more consistent with native ECMAScript errors and so that we can move away from defining and using integer exception codes.

  • Required that when calling an ECMAScript Function that corresponds to an IDL interface, the argument values are converted to IDL values in order from left to right.

  • Made properties corresponding to operations enumerable.

  • Changed the interface object and exception interface object properties on the global object to be configurable.

  • Added a signed 8 bit integer types named byte.

  • Expanded the allowable types for constants to include DOMString and nullable primitives.

  • Added support for static operations.

  • Fixed errors in the float and integer grammar terminals.

  • Added productions for array types to the grammar, which were missing.

  • Added a section for common IDL definitions that all conforming implementations must support, the first entry in which is a definition for the DOMTimeStamp type.

21 October 2010 – WD
  • Made constructors due to [Constructor] and [NamedConstructor] callable. Their behavior when called is the same as when used in a new expression.

  • Updated the ECMAScript language binding to target ECMAScript 5th edition, the biggest part of which is that now interface attributes are implemented as accessor properties.

  • Ensure that corresponding properties do not exist for constants, attributes and operations named “constructor” or “toString” if they would conflict with other requirements to have properties with those names.

  • Moved properties corresponding to attributes from host object instances to their interface prototype objects. Similarly, moved properties corresponding to exception fields from host exception objects to their exception interface prototype objects.

  • Disallow both [PutForwards] and [Replaceable] appearing on the same attribute.

  • Required that callable objects corresponding to operations be Function objects.

  • Changed the constructor property on interface prototype objects to be writable.

  • Changed the prototype property on interface and exception objects be non-enumerable.

  • Allowed callers to be overloaded.

  • Defined the length property on Function objects that correspond to operations and constructors.

  • Changed sequences to be passed by value, and added an array type for ordered lists of values that are passed by reference.

  • Removed interface forward declarations and the requirement that interfaces be declared before use.

  • Made the in keyword in argument lists optional.

  • Changed the Object, TRUE and FALSE keywords to be all lowercase.

  • Dropped [Optional] and [Variadic] in favor of optional and ... syntax.

  • Dropped [ImplementedOn] in favor of an implements statement.

  • Dropped [ExceptionConsts] in favor of allowing constants to be defined directly on exceptions. Defining constants on modules is now disallowed.

  • Changed [Constructor] and [PutForwards] to be an ECMAScript-specific extended attribute.

  • Turned [Callable], [IndexGetter], [IndexSetter], [IndexCreator], [IndexDeleter], [NameGetter], [NameSetter], [NameCreator], [NameDeleter] and [Stringifies] into real Web IDL syntax using caller, getter, setter, creator, deleter and stringifier. Dropped [NoIndexingOperations] in favor of an omittable keyword that can be used on the above six special operations.

  • Removed boxed valuetypes and replaced them with the concept of nullable types.

  • Added [NamespaceObject] to allow reflecting module hierarchies in ECMAScript.

  • Disallowed specifying [Callback] on interfaces that do not match the criteria for interfaces that can be implemented by native objects, and disallowed the use of the FunctionOnly and PropertyOnly identifiers unless the interface has only a single operation (or multiple operations, as long as they all have the same identifier).

  • Made corresponding indexed properties and ECMAScript properties for operations enumerable.

  • Outlawed having both [NoInterfaceObject] and [Constructor] on an interface.

  • Required that identical mixin prototype objects are in fact the same object.

  • Renamed [Null] and [Undefined] to [TreatNullAs] and [TreatUndefinedAs]. They are now honored when values are returned from native object implemented operations and attributes.

  • Added algorithms for getting and setting values of attributes on native object implementations of interfaces.

  • Added [OverrideBuiltins], which makes name getters prefer named properties instead of properties on the object itself.

  • Fixed bugs in the host object [[Put]] algorithm (now [[DefineOwnProperty]]) so that name and index creators are actually invoked, and restructured it as well as the host object [[Delete]] algorithm so that they are easier to read.

  • Provided language binding independent advice on handling user implemented interfaces that throw exceptions or return values of inappropriate types.

  • Renamed the awkwardly worded “object implementing an interface” type to “interface type”.

  • Added an [AllowAny] ECMAScript-specific extended attribute on operation arguments, which indicates that any type of ECMAScript value is allowed to be passed to that argument.

  • Changed the definition of the effective overload set to take into account the number of arguments passed, so that it can be used to resolve overloaded calls properly in the presence of variadic operations.

  • Removed DOMString from the list of primitive types, removed null from its set of values, and allowed it to be distinguished from primitive types in the overload resolution algorithm. The [Callback] extended attribute is now also taken into account when a native object is passed as an argument.

  • Defined exception handling for algorithms that call in to user ECMAScript code.

  • Added an algorithm for converting a sequence of 16 bit unsigned integer code units into a sequence of Unicode characters.

  • Added a double type for double precision floating point numbers.

  • Define [[Class]] for host objects that implement a single interface, regardless of whether it is annotated with [PrototypeRoot].

19 December 2008 – WD
  • Added a [NoIndexingOperations] extended attribute to indicate that operations annotated with named property or indexed property extended attributes won’t result in functions, if the language binding supports object indexing.

  • Changed the way extended attributes are parsed in the grammar and filled out the Extensibility section to mention how extended attributes not defined in this document can be used.

  • Fixed some bugs in the rules for converting float and unsigned long long to ECMAScript Number values, and vice versa.

  • Added [Prefix] to change the default mapping of modules to language binding namespacing constructs.

  • Allowed interfaces with constants to be implemented by ECMAScript native objects. This specifically allows implementation of a DOM Level 2 Traversal NodeFilter object in script.

  • Added a [Callable] extended attribute, which can be used to indicate the behavior of calling an object as a function.

  • Removed a bogus requirement that [PutForwards] identify an attribute whose type is the same as the attribute that has the [PutForwards], and disallowed cycles of forwarding assignments.

  • Added a [Replaceable] extended attribute that can be placed on an attribute to indicate that the corresponding ECMAScript property can be replaced.

  • Added a requirement that [Stringifies] not be specified on an interface that also declares an interface member named toString.

  • Changed the DOMString type to be a sequence of 16 bit code units, rather than a sequence of Unicode characters.

  • Reworded the ECMAScript type mapping section so that it can be more easily referenced from other sections of the document.

  • Renamed [NativeObject] to [Callback], and gave it an additional PropertyOnly argument.

  • Added an [Optional] extended attribute to make certain kinds of operation overloading able to be specified more succinctly.

  • Reworked operation overloading in IDL so that it is much more restrictive. Updated the overloaded operation and constructor resolution in ECMAScript accordingly.

  • Specified the behavior of index and name getters in ECMAScript as being in terms of additional properties that are placed on the host object. Added [IndexCreator], [IndexDeleter], [NameCreator] and [NameDeleter] to handle more aspects of these properties. The definition of [[Get]] for host objects is removed, but [[Put]] is expanded to handle index and name creators/setters, and [[Delete]] is now specified to handle index and name deleters.

  • Specified the value of [[Class]] for host objects.

  • Removed the suggestion to perform tricksy multiple inheritance simulation in ECMAScript with a mandated way to map multiple inheritance into a single inheritance prototype chain. Added [ImplementedOn] and [PrototypeRoot] to help with this.

  • Made an explicit mention of the Web Interface Definition Language (WIDL) W3C Member submission in the Status of this Document section.

29 August 2008 – WD
  • Added an [NamedConstructor] extended attribute to handle peculiarities like HTML 5’s Image constructor.

  • [Constructor] extended attributes may now take an argument list, and more than one can be used on an interface.

  • Added a [NativeObject] extended attribute that restricts which interfaces may be implemented by ECMAScript native objects, and updated the “Native objects implementing interfaces” section to be more restricted and precise.

  • Moved [NoInterfaceObject] into the ECMAScript-specific extended attributes section.

  • Fixed errors in a couple of algorithms that were introduced by steps being renumbered.

  • Properties corresponding to IDL constants are now ReadOnly.

  • Removed [NoNull], and added [Null] and [Undefined] in its place.

  • Made DOMString an intrinsic type, but still allow it to be defined as a boxed sequence of unsigned shorts for compatibility with already published IDL fragments.

  • ECMAScript host object constructors (specified with [Constructor]) now must return an object that implements the interface.

  • Tweaked the abstract and introduction so that it is clear that Web IDL can be used for specifications that define not only a DOM, but any interface.

  • Clarified the behavior of passing a non-null, non-Object value to a host object that expects a boxed valuetype.

  • Renamed document to Web IDL.

10 April 2008 – WD
  • Restricted boxed valuetypes to boxing only types that cannot already have null.

  • Reworked how operation overloading is specified (the [Overloads] extended attribute is no longer needed), and how ECMAScript disambiguates calls to overloaded operations.

  • Filled in the “Host exception objects” section.

  • Added an exception interface prototype object for constants to live in. Added constants to interface objects, interface prototype objects, exception interface objects and exception interface prototype objects.

  • Tweaked the behavior of sequences in ECMAScript.

  • Added an editorial note about the possibility of somehow specifying HTML 5’s Image constructor.

  • Added a [NoInterfaceObject] extended attribute, which prevents an ECMAScript interface object being created for the interface on which it appears.

  • Added a [Stringifies] extended attribute.

  • Fixed small bugs in [[HasProperty]], [[Get]] and [[Put]] algorithms for ECMAScript host objects.

  • Added an editorial note about the possibility of an extended attribute that specifies what properties get enumerated in a for..in loop in ECMAScript.

17 October 2007 – FPWD
  • Initial publication.