Austria approves ISO/IEC DIS 29500. However, in order to address the requirement for applications to conform with this standard, we suggest to include a specification for conformance testing in the standard as soon as possible. For instance, test suites for both valid and invalid files could be provided, supported by a specification of events and actions. In particular, such test files will help to resolve issues with spread-sheets like interdependencies of embedded formulas and the order of computation.
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Proposed Disposition of DIS 29500 Comment AT-0001 (Modified: 2008-01-09) The development of an Office Open XML specification conformance test suite for interoperability is an excellent suggestion. The usefulness of a reference implementation is clear from the work of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11. The majority of ISO, IEC and JTC 1 standards exist without conformance test suites or reference implementations, and these topics are not covered in the JTC 1 Directives; however we agree that the creation of a test suite would be a useful follow-up activity. Although no reference implementation or interoperability test suite is available at this time, a growing number of implementations of ECMA-376 are becoming available, including those released by Apple (Mac OS X Leopard, iWork 08, iPhone), Adobe (InDesign), Microsoft (Office 2007, Office 2003, Office XP, Office 2000, Office 2008 Mac OS X), Novell (Suse Open Office) , Google (Search / Preview), Mindjet (MindManager), Intergen, OpenXML/ODF Translator (Open Source project on Sourceforge), Dataviz (DocumentsToGo on Palm OS, MacLinkPlus on Mac OS X Leopard), NeoOffice, Altova (XMLSpy), MarkLogic (XML Content Server), Datawatch (Monarch Pro), QuickOffice (QuickOffice Premier 5.0 on Symbian), Altsoft (XML2PDF Server 2007) and those under development by Corel (WordPerfect), AbiWord, Gnome (GNumeric), Xandros, Linspire, Turbolinux and others. These implementations are now available on many platforms, including Linux, the Macintosh, Windows, and handheld devices (PalmOS, Symbian, Windows Mobile). If there were a common forum for these implementers to share their test suites, the community as a whole would benefit. If the requirement for an interoperability test suite or reference implementation is established and shared by National Bodies, SC 34 might initiate appropriate activities as suggested by this comment. Similar Comments: GR-0002 , IT-0002
Positive comment
This should also be categorized as a favorable comment that makes an objection, specifically that conformance tests must be created. It’s NOT just a fluff comment.
I concur. This is not fluff, it is process. Having tried to implement things with no test suites (WS-Addressing), the lack of a normative test suite inevitably leads to ambiguous interpretations. When two teams misinterpret the specification differently, this either leads to finger pointing sessions (if the issue is found) or it can lead to hidden bugs in the generated artifacts.
It is not too late to publish normative test cases of valid and invalid documents and accompany the specification with them.