Problem with 'attributes'

[Benoit Bezaire <benoit@itedo.com>]

Hi,

  I'd love to fix this problem in the draft and would like the group's
  opinion.  Here's the problem, let us first consider the following
  CGM file:

  BEGAPS 'myId' 'grobject' STLIST;
   APSATTR 'name' "14 1 'myName'";
   APSATTR 'screentip' "14 1 'This is a tip'";
   APSATTR 'viewcontext' "16 4 126.6082 97.4197 471.8895 318.0822";
   APSATTR 'linkuri' "14 3 'http://www.w3.org' 'W3C' ''";
  BEGAPSBODY;
  ...

  and the following XML companion file:
  <companion>
    <grobject apsId="myId" wire:has-wire="true">
      <wire:data type="22" color="green"/>
    </grobject>
  </companion>

  So let's assume that the XML companion file is applied, if I
  remember correctly, we agreed that the memory model would look like
  this after loading and applying the companion file:
  
  BEGAPS 'myId' 'grobject' STLIST;
   APSATTR 'screentip' "14 1 'This is a tip'";
   APSATTR 'viewcontext' "16 4 126.6082 97.4197 471.8895 318.0822";
   APSATTR 'linkuri' "14 3 'http://www.w3.org' 'W3C' ''";
   APSATTR 'name' "14 1 'myName'";
   APSATTR 'wire:has-wire' "14 1 'true'";
  BEGAPSBODY;
   BEGAPS 'madeUpId' 'wire:data' STLIST;
    APSATTR 'type' "14 1 '22'";
    APSATTR 'color' "14 1 'green'";
  ...

  Given the current spec, a user can get access at:
  -screentip and viewcontext by calling getAppStructureAttr() on myId;
  -linkuri by calling getLinkuris() on myId;
  -name by calling getNames() on myId;
  -wire:has-wire by calling getAttributeNS() on myId;

  Correct?

  My question is... what should 'attributes' return when called on
  myId?  Returning all five attributes (screentip, viewcontext,
  linkuri, name, wire:has-wire) as Attr nodes currently can't be done
  because a linkuri can't be expressed as a Attr Node; linkuri have
  their own interface; Hyperlink which doesn't derive from Node :-(

  Do people agree that it is unacceptable to return less than all 5
  attributes?

  One possible approach for fixing the problem would be to make the
  'value' attribute of the Attr interface a DOMStringList instead of a
  DOMString.  That way we could remove the Hyperlink interface and
  state that a linkuri has to be expressed as a DOMStringList
  containing 3 strings.

  Thoughts?  Or any other suggestions?

  Regards,
  
-- 
 Benoit                 mailto:benoit@itedo.com