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Clarify case-insensitive treatment of ARIA roles #2838

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Clarify case-insensitive treatment of ARIA roles #2838

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e1a7cb6
Specify case-insensitivity for role token match
Jul 6, 2026
8da60c7
Specify case-insensitivity in section 8.1
Jul 7, 2026
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4 changes: 2 additions & 2 deletions index.html
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Expand Up @@ -870,7 +870,7 @@ <h2><abbr title="Accessible Rich Internet Applications">WAI-ARIA</abbr> Roles</h
language semantics, there are no changes in the <abbr title="Document Object Model">DOM</abbr>, only in the <a class="termref">accessibility tree</a>.
</p>
<p>
User agents MUST use the first token in the sequence of tokens in the <a><code>role</code> attribute</a> value that matches the name of any non-abstract
User agents MUST use the first token in the sequence of tokens in the <a><code>role</code> attribute</a> value that is an [=ASCII case-insensitive=] match for the name of any non-abstract

@pkra pkra Jul 6, 2026

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I think there needs to be a matching change in the definition of the role attribute (Section 8.1) which has

The first name literal of a non-abstract WAI-ARIA role in the list of tokens in the role attribute defines the role according to which the user agent MUST process the element.

Come to think of it, I think it would be better to remove this sentence here and only clarify this in the definition of the role attribute / Section 8.1.

@rahimabdi rahimabdi Jul 7, 2026

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Agreed @pkra, could it be specified in both places? I've updated the PR.

@pkra pkra Jul 10, 2026

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We just merged #2798 and section 8.1 is now the definitive place.

I strongly prefer not to duplicate normative statements - they get out of sync. Especially here, where there is little reason to look for a duplication all the way in Section 4 should we change something in Section 8.1.

<abbr title="Accessible Internet Application">WAI-ARIA</abbr> <a>role</a>. Refer to the section on <a><code>role</code> attribute</a> implementation in
<a href="#host_general_role">Host Languages</a> for further details.
</p>
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -16352,7 +16352,7 @@ <h2><a>Role Attribute</a></h2>
attribute value illegal in the host-language syntax; and
</li>
<li>
The first name literal of a non-abstract <abbr title="Accessible Rich Internet Applications">WAI-ARIA</abbr> role in the list of tokens in the <a><code>role</code> attribute</a> defines
The first [=ASCII case-insensitive=] name literal of a non-abstract <abbr title="Accessible Rich Internet Applications">WAI-ARIA</abbr> role in the list of tokens in the <a><code>role</code> attribute</a> defines

@pkra pkra Jul 10, 2026

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I think this sentence should be replaced with the one above; "name literal" is just odd here.

the role according to which the user agent MUST process the element. User Agent processing for roles is defined in the
<cite><a href="" class="core-mapping">Core Accessibility API Mappings</a></cite> [[CORE-AAM-1.2]].
</li>
Expand Down