Exploring Web platform cross-dependencies | W3C Blog

[Karl Dubost]

Title: Exploring Web platform cross-dependencies | W3C Blog
URI: https://www.w3.org/blog/2016/07/exploring-web-platform-cross-dependencies/
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2016 07:30:14 GMT


We first built a [crawler and scrapper of specifications][1] (based on the excellent [jsdom][2] library) which extracts the WebIDL definitions embedded in these specifications, and the normative references that bind these specifications to specifications they build upon.

With that data collected across all the specifications we were able to identify that use WebIDL, we built a first simple analyzer of that WebIDL graph, to identify [potential bugs in specifications][3], including invalid WebIDL definitions, duplication of names in interfaces, references to undefined interface names, missing normative references.

We also built a simple [explorer of that WebIDL data][4] that allows to determine which interfaces are defined where, and re-used by what other specifications.



[1]: https://github.com/tidoust/reffy
[2]: https://github.com/tmpvar/jsdom
[3]: https://github.com/tidoust/reffy/wiki/Report-per-anomaly-%2820160711%29
[4]: https://dontcallmedom.github.io/webidlpedia/?full=popularity




--
Karl Dubost, Mozilla
http://www.la-grange.net/karl/moz