Markup metadata
The simplest definition of metadata is that it is data about data. Metadata might be very useful. As for the markup there was some metadata embedded: id, small description of assertion, link to test. During the markup transfer I realized that more metadata would be very helpful. In the new version of specification there were several kinds of assertions:
- old:
non-changed text, tests do not need any changes; - oldToBeChanged:
text changed, tests do need to be changed; - new:
totaly new text, new tests needed; - newWritten:
new text, but tests already exist (because the test development process began as soon as the draft spec was avaliable); - newWrittenToBeChanged:
new text, tests exist, draft spec changed, so the tests need to be changed or existing tests are not enough.
Adding this kind of data to the markup would greatly simplify the future work – the test development. Because just by looking at an assertion in the spec one can easily say if more tests are needed or several should be updated.
With the given is was decided to use the title attribute in a-href tag (the second anchor). So the markup would look like:
<a name=assertionID><!– shord description as html comment –>
assertion statement here
<img src=”pics/assert.gif”><a href=”path to test” title=assertType>test ID which is the same as assertion ID</a>
The title attribute can be viewed in a browser as a hint.
anchor, assertion, assertionID, JLS, markup, markup transfer, metadata, spec, specification, statement, tests