why is removeEmptyEntitiesDescriptors option needed?

[Tom Scavo]

On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 1:08 PM, Cantor, Scott <cantor.2 at osu.edu> wrote:
> On 4/10/15, 8:42 AM, "Tom Scavo" <trscavo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>The following new doc page for IdP V3:
>>
>>https://wiki.shibboleth.net/confluence/x/_gInAQ
>>
>>defines a removeEmptyEntitiesDescriptors XML attribute but AFAICT an
>><md:EntitiesDescriptor> element MUST NOT be empty (according to the
>>SAML2 Metadata Scema). Am I missing something?
>
> I believe it's there so that if a filter runs and removes all its children, it won't be left behind empty (which is in fact not expected to be valid).

Ah, I hadn't thought of that but I'm also not sure why that's even an
option. In any case, it defaults to true, so I won't worry about it
further :-)

Thanks,

Tom