# LDC-E5402 — Operation target missing from the base edition

## What it means

Every operation on a revision edge addresses a fragment of the older
edition: a replacement edits an existing fragment, an insertion adds a new
one, a repeal or a renumbering removes or moves one. When the addressed
fragment is not there — repealing something absent, editing something
missing, inserting something already present, renumbering something that
does not exist — the operation has no target, and the compiler stops at the
operation instead of guessing what was meant.

## Example

```law
language "law.core" version "0.2";
package demo.diagnostics version "0.1.0";
namespace "urn:law:demo:diagnostics";

source ORDER { kind ministerial_order; }
edition ED_2025 of ORDER { language ru; officiality official; }
edition ED_2026 of ORDER { language ru; officiality official; }
fragment F_OLD in ED_2025 { kind article; locator "article/5";
  text ru official """старая редакция"""; }
fragment F_NEW in ED_2026 { kind article; locator "article/5";
  text ru official """новая редакция"""; }
revision LAW_1 {
  previous ED_2025;
  next ED_2026;
  relation amends;
  op repeal { locator "article/9"; }
}
```

## Fix

```law
language "law.core" version "0.2";
package demo.diagnostics version "0.1.0";
namespace "urn:law:demo:diagnostics";

source ORDER { kind ministerial_order; }
edition ED_2025 of ORDER { language ru; officiality official; }
edition ED_2026 of ORDER { language ru; officiality official; }
fragment F_OLD in ED_2025 { kind article; locator "article/5";
  text ru official """старая редакция"""; }
fragment F_NEW in ED_2026 { kind article; locator "article/5";
  text ru official """новая редакция"""; }
revision LAW_1 {
  previous ED_2025;
  next ED_2026;
  relation amends;
  op replace { locator "article/5"; language ru; text """новая редакция"""; }
}
```

## Engine message

The engine reports this in its own wording:

```text
example.law:16:3: error LDC-E5402: edge "LAW_1": operation #0 (repeal) removes a missing fragment article/9 — the operation target is not found in the base edition (§32.1)
```

## Related

- [Sources](/constructs/sources/) — how editions carry fragment texts.
- [Time](/constructs/time/) — how editions and effective moments order amendments.