718741 - document.getSelection() should return null if defaultView is null

Status: NEW

(Core :: DOM: Core & HTML, defect, P5)

Description

[Aryeh Gregor (:ayg) (no longer with Mozilla)]

document.implementation.createHTMLDocument("").getSelection() behaves as follows in different browsers:

* IE9: Returns a Selection object distinct from window.getSelection()
* Firefox 12.0a1 (2012-01-12) and Opera Next 12.00 alpha: Returns the same as window.getSelection()
* Chrome 17 dev: Returns null

Such a document has no useful selection, so I've specced WebKit's behavior:

"""
The getSelection() method on the Document interface must return null if the context object's defaultView is null, and the context object's selection otherwise.
"""
http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/editing/raw-file/tip/editing.html#dom-document-getselection

This is admittedly a bad definition; see discussion starting at <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2012JanMar/0159.html>, and "View comments" in the spec.  However, we can at least try to converge in simple cases like document.implementation.createHTMLDocument("").  I wrote tests for that case, which WebKit passes and everyone else fails (look for "HTML document with null defaultView"):

http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/editing/raw-file/tip/selecttest/getSelection.html

If anyone has suggestions of other cases to test, suggest them and I can write more tests.

Comment 1

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1472046

Move all DOM bugs that haven’t been updated in more than 3 years and has no one currently assigned to P5.

If you have questions, please contact :mdaly.