6073 - Node::childNodes should never be null

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: DOM: Core & HTML, defect, P3)

Description

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

Node::childNodes should never be null.  If a node has no children, it should be
a nodelist with no nodes in it.

See the above test ("Run Passive Tests"), and the DOM spec:

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-DOM-Level-1/level-one-core.html#ID-1950641247

Comment 1

[vidur (gone)]

Yup. It's just laziness on my part. Since this isn't breaking anyone, I'm moving
it to M8.

Comment 2

[vidur (gone)]

I have a question into the DOM WG, since I believe it might be a mistake that
the spec requires that all nodes (even those that can't have children) have a
childNodes list under them. My recollection is that we decided that all
*elements* should always return a valid childNodes list, but I think it might
have inadvertantly been written up as all nodes. Pushing off the bug till I get
an answer.

Comment 3

[Akhil Arora]

Node::getAttributes() does the same thing

Comment 4

[vidur (gone)]

Yes, but Node::getAttributes() does that as per spec. It should return null for
all but Elements.

Comment 5

[vidur (gone)]

I have a fix in my tree. Still waiting for the tree to be open and green at a
point where I'm ready to check in.

Comment 6

[vidur (gone)]

Fix checked in on 8/25/1999.

Comment 7

[gerardok]

QA Contact massive update.

Comment 8

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

Verified fixed, Linux apprunner 1999-10-08-08-M11.