[xml] Re: libxml-1.7.0 is out, [Was Re: libxml 1.6.2 is hosed]

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From: Daniel Veillard (Daniel.Veillard@w3.org)
Date: Wed Sep 22 1999 - 08:33:08 EDT

On Wed, Sep 22, 1999 at 08:19:01PM +0800, James Henstridge wrote:
> I wish I didn't have to rely on the xmlParserCtxt structure. It is just
> that the SAX parser entry points in libxml are not usable for most SAX
> parsers other than the DOM tree generator because they give no way of
> setting the userData pointer that is passed to each SAX callback. As it
> stands, you would need to use global variables to hold parser state
> information, which is not always desirable.

  I completely agree, you're not to blame, I am, but the parser interface
get more complex, there is a wide range of options:
  - to use SAX or the DOM tree generation
  - to substitute entities or not
  - to validate or not
  - to fetch external parser entities or not
  - etc ...
 This is actually growing as I implement more fully the XML specification
and it's unclear to me that adding one function per case is a good idea as
the number will explode fast. Maybe one function will all parameters are
tunable, but in that case I need a precise list of those parameters and
it was still growing last week (with remote entities/DTD fetching being
added).
 I would like that interface to be the final one, and that's the reason
I didn't create "intermediary" ones.

> The problem code in libglade is concentrated in the my_xmlSAXParseFile and
> my_xmlSAXParseMemory function in glade/glade-sax.c. These two functions
> give sane entry points to the libxml parser for custom SAX parsers. If
> you added routines with similar functionality to libxml, I can remove the
> problem code from libglade.
>
> Please consider doing this, as the SAX interface is very useful for
> writing fast parsers where the DOM tree is not required.

 Yes of course, more and more people are now using the SAX API so it probably
makes sense to provide (and maintain a specific SAX simplified API).

Daniel 

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