[whatwg] pattern attribute

[Max Romantschuk]

Ian Hickson wrote:
>>>No, if the regexp is invalid, it is just ignored.
> 
> Making a reference implementation of anything implies that it will be 
> bug-free, which is highly unlikely. But it's possible that eventually a 
> validator or lint will be created.
> 
> UAs are free to emit warnings when attributes have invalid values. It 
> seems that that would be the best way to go as far as helping developers.

I guess my point is that silent dropping of errors can be very harmful. 
One stellar example of this is the countless web pages out there full of 
HTML and CSS errors which exist thanks to IE's "helpful" HTML correction 
features and CSS error handling.

It may not be the same thing, but I believe it should be as hard as 
possible to construct faulty regexps. If the regexp is dropped silently 
it is likely to be far less useful than in the case of the developer 
being alerted of an error and fixing the error, or in a worst case 
removing the pattern altogether.

.max

-- 
Max Romantschuk
http://max.nma.fi/