[alicebot-archcomm] Spec for Li

[Sandro G.]

Dirk Scheuring wrote:
> I think that it's clearer to require a concrete behavior from the
> interpreter, like "IF a conditional list has no default list item, AND
> none of the conditional values matches, THEN return the empty string".
> If we'd say instead "...THEN the AIML document is not valid", it
> doesn't seem clear to me what we want the implementation to do then:
> Don't load the file? Don't load the category? Don't load the
> conditional element? I think that we should describe "compliant
> behavior" as simply and explicitly as possible.
>
> Dirk
>   
You are correct, things needs to be cleared up.
The easier change to the specs would be to just specify that kind of
behavior, otherwise here is a more "complex" one:

AIML relies on the XML specs so here i call the XML conformance section [1].
Indeed, a "compliant behavior" depends if the XML/AIML parser is a
validating or a non-validating one.

As Mehri already reported, such a change would make all AIML documents
invalid (that sounds huge). But:
If the parser is a validating one, it could just report the violations
to whatever the Archcomm members sees fit, from notices to warnings to
halting errors.
Moreover in such case we can even look to define a backward
compatibility, i.e.:
in case a default list item is missing from an condition element, the
parser can add an empty default list item,
otherwise we can say that it stops loading the conditional element, the
category or the whole file, then report the violation.
(If it is a non-validating parser the XML specs. says that the behavior
is undefined. So here we shall even add to the specs. the "return empty
string" rule)

Regards,

Sandro

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml11-20060816/#sec-conformance