Maybe someone can tell us

why the DOM version 1 didn't specify a means of getting the actual XML out 
of the DOM document.  I'm not really talking about loading and saving 
files, but rather just getting the contents of the DOM doc as a big string 
at least.

Does someone have a historical perspective on this?  I'm trying to 
implement some XML functionality with Xerces and I'm frustrated with the 
hassle of writing reams of code just to get the DOM into usable XML.

How were people supposed to use the DOM without this basic feature?

Perhaps hearing a good rationale will make this onerous task less annoying.

Regards,
Gavin Stokes