Subj : E4X: should xmlObject.attributes() return all attributes or only
To   : netscape.public.mozilla.jseng
From : Martin Honnen
Date : Fri Apr 08 2005 07:59 pm


Test case:

var p = <p id="p1" class="style1" xml:lang="en">Kibology for all.</p>;
print("attributes().length(): " + p.attributes().length());

yields 2 with Spidermonkey and 3 with Rhino.

The specs says "The attributes method returns an XMLList containing the 
XML attributes of this object." which lets me expect I get all 
attributes. However the formal definition then says
   Return the result of calling the [[Get]] method of x with argument 
ToAttributeName("*")
and trying to read through the specification to understand what that 
should return it appears that only the attributes in no namespace are to 
be returned.
Is that a bug in the spec? If there is a method called attributes why 
does it not return all attributes regardless of whether they are in a 
namespace or not?

The only way to consistently get all attributes with Rhino and 
Spidermonkey is
   print("p.@*::*.length(): " + p.@*::*.length());
but it seems odd that the method attributes does not yield all 
attributes. If that is intended then the spec should maybe be fixed to 
specificially state that the method attributes only returns attributes 
in no namespace.

-- 

	Martin Honnen
	http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

.