[xquery-talk] Adaptive serialization and indendation

[Liam R. E. Quin]

On Sat, 2017-05-27 at 22:36 -0400, Joe Wicentowski wrote:
> 
> [...]

> Is there room for implementations to use such indentation and still
> call it "adaptive"?  If so, what basis is there in the spec for such
> behavior?

Here's a personal response - use bugzilla (see the status section of
the spec,
https://www.w3.org/TR/xslt-xquery-serialization-31/
for details) if you want a Working Group response.

The Working Group will probably close soon, however.

So,

https://www.w3.org/TR/xslt-xquery-serialization-31/#JSON_INDENT
has, for JSON,
[[
The indent parameter controls whether the serializer adjusts the
whitespace in the serialized result so that a person will find it
easier to read.
]]
(the spec doesn't say _which_ person!).

OK, and now we see, in 10.1,
[[
For some item types the Adaptive output method will delegate
serialization to other output methods. [...] serialization parameters, 
if set, will be passed down to the serialization method that is
applied  to each item in the supplied sequence.
]]

So as I read it you have as implementor a license to pass the indent
parameter down and to use JSON serialization for maps and arrays and
hence to allow the readable indenting.

Certainly that's in the _spirit_ of the adaptive method. And using a
serialization parameter would also let you pass the tests :) although
I don't know how important that is to you.

Again, this is based on my own reading of the spec, and being at the
meetings and on the calls, but it's not an "official" response.

Best,

Liam


-- 
Liam R. E. Quin <liam at w3.org>
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)