Arnaud Le Hors wrote: > > Well, IBM, for one, uses Xerces in its Java platform and is facing this kind > of problem too (cf DOM Level 3 vs 2 discussion). The right solution is for > Sun to relax its signature tests concerning "endorsed standards". Now that > Sun officially supports a mechanism to override these endorsed standards it > is only logical to include the same kind of support in its conformance > tests. If you could help in any way on that front that would be very nice of > you.
I'm replying to your message, but this is not specifically directed at you but a response to other emails also. Here is my understanding: the intent of having the signature tests is as a partial solution to enforcing spec conformance. For example, there is a J2EE 1.3 spec and several implementations from various vendors like BEA, IBM, and the reference implementation (RI), that attempt to conform to it. The goal is to allow an app component, call it C, that uses the J2EE 1.3 API to be able to run in any 1.3 compatible implementation. Since I'm familiar with the RI, I'll use that as an example. The J2EE RI may have more than one 1.3 conformant version, but that C should run in any of those versions and also in other implementations from other vendors. At a minimum, the API should be stable so if someone develops using a newer version of the RI, say 1.3.1, then it should also run in an older version say RI 1.3.0 or any other 1.3 spec compliant implementation. The J2EE 1.3 spec includes JAXP 1.1 which includes DOM L2 core. This means that C should only be limited to DOM L2 core b/c if it uses DOM L3 APIs then it would not work in other J2EE 1.3 compatible implementations which may only implement DOM L2. Then what changes are allowed? The answer is that changes which are bug fixes with respect to the spec (otherwise no changes would be allowed). Spec changes need to wait until the next version of the platform, in this case J2EE 1.4. I believe the "endorsed standards" mechanism is something different. It was something that was added to J2SE 1.4 to allow users to use newer versions of some packages like DOM. The mechanism works like the -Xbootclasspath option that Miles mentioned. However, I am less certain what the rules are with vendors shipping say DOM L3 by default and still claim to be J2SE 1.4 compliant. It could be argued that this situation is similar to the J2EE 1.3 example above and may not be allowed. -Edwin --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
