Subject: Interaction between author inheritance and atom:source

From: "A. Pagaltzis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:58:30 +0200

Hi all,

there’s an interesting subtle corner case with these that I just
ran into. To wit:

    <feed xmlns="&atomNs;">
        <title>Hmm?</title>
        <id>urn:foo:</id>
        <updated>2007-10-25T12:27:44+02:00</updated>
        <entry>
            <title>Hmm?</title>
            <id>urn:foo:bar</id>
            <updated>2007-10-25T12:27:44+02:00</updated>
            <summary>Now what?</summary>
            <source>
                <author><name>Tricky Mickey</name></author>
            </source>
        </entry>
    </feed>

By the spirit of the spec this is complete, and the author for
the Entry is clearly given:

    If an atom:entry element does not contain atom:author
    elements, then the atom:author elements of the contained
    atom:source element are considered to apply. In an Atom Feed
    Document, the atom:author elements of the containing
    atom:feed element are considered to apply to the entry if
    there are no atom:author elements in the locations described
    above.

However, by a literal reading of the normative atom:feed rules,
that example feed is invalid:

    atom:feed elements MUST contain one or more atom:author
    elements, unless all of the atom:feed element's child
    atom:entry elements contain at least one atom:author element.

One for the errata, I suppose.

Regards,
-- 
Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://plasmasturm.org/>