[webkit-dev] Deprecation of CSSStyleDeclaration -> getPropertyShorthand method.

[Maciej Stachowiak]

On May 21, 2012, at 11:09 AM, Alexis Menard <alexis.menard at openbossa.org> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Let's try the new deprecation process documented as
> http://trac.webkit.org/wiki/DeprecatingFeatures.
> 
> I would like to propose the deprecation and removal of
> getPropertyShorthand of CSSStyleDeclaration.
> 
> State of art :
> - This method is exposed to the Web.
> - Its purpose is to get whether a given CSS property was set from
> within a shorthand (i.e.
> shouldBeEqualToString("test0.style.getPropertyShorthand('overflow-x')",
> "overflow"); is true if the CSS code is setting the overflow and not
> overflow-x).
> - It is used in 4 layout tests (fast/inspector-support/style.html,
> fast/css/font-shorthand.html, fast/css/overflow-property.html,
> fast/backgrounds/repeat/resources/background-repeat-shorthand.js)
> - It is exposed in the Objective C API.
> - It is not implemented by any other vendors (Opera, Firefox, Internet
> Explorer).
> - There is no specification about it.
> - It was added in 2005 http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/11481.

[...]

> This function was added by Dave Hyatt and reviewed by Maciej
> Stachowiak, maybe you guys can tell us why you added it back then (if
> your memory is very good as we are talking about 2005 material)?

I don't know of any reason for this to exist other than for benefit of the inspector. It appears to no longer be used by the Web Inspector, thought it has its own function with the same name (assuming I am reading the code right). It would be fine to stop exposing it to the web if it is in fact unused or hardly used.

 - Maciej