Re: XML Information Set WD

Mark Needleman wrote:
> 
> I read the working draft XML Information Set and have one basic comment:
> 
> The document is interesting and probably very well done from a technical
> point of view. But Im unclear as to exactly what the purpose of it is -
> what contexts and applications is it meant to support - for what mechanism
> will it be used. 

The goal of the information set is to prevent incompatible implementations
of XML. Every XSL processing application must work with the logical
objects of an XML document. Some do so through the DOM, some through SAX,
some through XSL, some through XPointer, some through XQL, some through
groves and some through still other paths. These paths can diverge in
their handling of XML objects. 

For instance:

 *  the DOM has the terminology "tagName" which is not found in the XML
specification or (AFAIK any other XML specification). (the DOM is wrong
here)

 * XPointer allows the addressing of individual characters but XSL and the
DOM speak of characters as only being contained in "text nodes".

 * SAX does not report CDATA sections, entity references and comments, but
the DOM claims that they are semantically important

If all of these specifications had been based on a common data model and
terminological base then we hope that these divergences would not have
arisen.

-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself
 http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

Alabama's constitution is 100 years old, 300 pages long and has more than
600 amendments. Highlights include "Amendment 393: Amendment of Amendment
No.  351", "Validation of Laws Regulating Court Costs in Randolph County",
"Miscegenation laws", "Bingo Games in Russell County", "Suppression
of dueling".  - http://www.legislature.state.al.us/ALISHome.html

Received on Tuesday, 25 May 1999 12:56:45 UTC