XML Serialisation (was Re: Agenda for XML Core WG telcon of 2009 October 7)

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Grosso, Paul writes:

> HTML request for clearer XML serialisation
> ------------------------------------------
> Henry raised the issue that HTML folks think the XML
> spec is broken because it doesn't define error recovery
> and doesn't discuss serialisation.
>
> Simon added his understanding of the issue at
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xml-core-wg/2009Jun/0007
> (second half of the message) and a thread starting with a
> reply from John ensued at
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xml-core-wg/2009Jun/thread.html#msg8
>
> Perhaps with this email beginning, Henry only needs to reply
> to that thread to complete the following:
>
> ACTION to Henry:  Send email to the XML Core WG list
> outlining the suggestion to define a serialisation spec
> including the rationale.

The above thread is about parsing and error recovery, not serialisation.

> Henry suggests reading
> http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200909/msg00072.html
> but I still don't get it, so we should plan to discuss this
> on the call this week.  My message requesting clarification is at
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xml-core-wg/2009Sep/0022
> (as yet with no follow up).

And _that_ thread, it turns out, is about XPath Data Model
serialisation, and in particular how to preserve type-annotation, so
not actually as relevant as I at first thought.

The issue as I understand it (and it's actually connected to the
parsing/error recovery issue) is that there _is_ broken XML out there,
and it mostly comes from programs, in particular from PHP scripts
which produce feeds by jamming together various sources of XML.  When
the matrix and the sources have different encodings, this produces
broken output, e.g. [bother, can't find the thread with the examples
of this].  So, the argument goes, we need a W3C publication which lays
down the law on how to programmatically produce clean XML.

Here's a document which in many ways could stand as the first draft of
such an XML Serialization Best Practices REC/NOTE/???:

  http://hsivonen.iki.fi/producing-xml/

ht
- -- 
       Henry S. Thompson, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
                         Half-time member of W3C Team
      10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
                Fax: (44) 131 651-1426, e-mail: ht@inf.ed.ac.uk
                       URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
[mail really from me _always_ has this .sig -- mail without it is forged spam]
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Received on Wednesday, 7 October 2009 12:42:48 UTC