[css-contain-3] Contain specs disagree about canonical order of contain keywords

[dholbert]

css-contain-1 defined the grammar for contain with size at the start when using the longhand syntax, like so:

Value: none | strict | content | [ size || layout || paint ]

...whereas css-contain-3 flips the order to put size (and the new value inline-size) at the end:

New values: layout || style || paint || [ size | inline-size ]

The order matters for serialization, per https://drafts.csswg.org/cssom/#serialize-a-css-value , which says:

If certain component values can appear in any order without changing the meaning of the value (a pattern typically represented by a double bar || in the value syntax), reorder the component values to use the canonical order of component values as given in the property definition table.

If you're looking at css-contain-1, you would expect size (and hence inline-size) to serialize at the start of the list. If you're looking at css-contain-3, you'd expect them to serialize them at the end of the list.

Looking at what immplementations do & WPT tests expect:

• implementations do serialize size at the start, and Chromium/WebKit serialize inline-size at the start too (whereas Firefox serializes it at the end, but probably should put it at the start, for consistency with the fact that we serialize size at the start).
• Two WPT tests expect size and inline-size to serialize at the start: https://wpt.fyi/results/css/css-contain/parsing/contain-valid.html and https://wpt.fyi/results/css/css-contain/parsing/contain-computed.html

So probably the ordering in css-contain-3 should be fixed to put [size | inline-size] at the start.

(Perhaps we should also add none | strict | content keywords to it as well, while we're at it? I'm not sure whether it's problematic for those to be omitted from "New values" or not, given that we're repeating most of the preexisting grammar there except for those ones.)

[cdoublev]

I'm not sure whether it's problematic for those to be omitted from "New values" or not

It is. CSS Contain 3 should redefine the entire value definition (with the right canonical order), in my opinion.

As noted in this comment, all other uses of New values in other specs assume concatenation with | as the glue, which would give none | strict | content | [ size || layout || style || paint ] | layout || style || paint || [ size | inline-size ], which is wrong, obviously.

[dholbert]

Yeah, css contain 3 should probably say "Value: [...]" and include the whole grammar, instead of specifying "New values" with a subset of the preexisting grammar.

Also, it looks like I forgot to link to the relevant spec sections. Here they are (including level 2 as well for completeness):
Level 1: https://drafts.csswg.org/css-contain-1/#contain-property
Value: none | strict | content | [ size || layout || paint ]

Level 2: https://drafts.csswg.org/css-contain-2/#contain-property
Value: none | strict | content | [ size || layout || style || paint ]

Level 3: https://drafts.csswg.org/css-contain-3/#contain-property
New values: layout || style || paint || [ size | inline-size ]

That last one is the one that needs fixing.

[mirisuzanne]

Pushed a fix. Let me know if there are still issues there.

[dholbert]

Thanks! So with that fix, the Level 3 definition now reads:

Value: none | strict | content | [ [size | inline-size] || layout || style || paint ]

i.e. the same ordering as in Level 2, but with size expanded to [size | inline-size].

That make sense to me, and it means the spec matches the tests that I linked in the initial comment here. (Firefox still mistakenly serializes inline-size at the end, but we'll fix that in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1744309 or a dependency.)