Re: Efficient read-only cloning?

keshlam@us.ibm.com writes:

> Note that for XML design tools, which may edit the DTD, cloning the kids
> isn't enough. To support those, EntityReference also has to be aware when
> Entity has changed and refresh itself.

Only if the design tool (editor?) actually expands the EntityReference,
which I suspect it's not likely to do while you're editing.  If I wanted to
see the expansions (perhaps in some kind of preview window), I'd implement
it using some kind of tree traverser that went directly to the Entity rather
than blindly descending into the children of the EntityReference.

It all comes back to the fact that there's no TreeIterator anymore, so
people are trying to make parentNode do all the work of keeping track of
traversal state as well as the underlying structure.  It can't do both
without massive inefficiency.

-- 
 Stephen R. Savitzky   Chief Software Scientist, Ricoh Silicon Valley, Inc., 
<steve@rsv.ricoh.com>                            California Research Center
 voice: 650.496.5710   fax: 650.854.8740    URL: http://rsv.ricoh.com/~steve/
  home: <steve@starport.com> URL: http://www.starport.com/people/steve/

Received on Wednesday, 23 September 1998 13:31:25 UTC