xml-dev - Re: YAXPAPI (Yet Another XML Parser API)- an XDEV proposal

[Peter Murray-Rust <peter@ursus.demon.co.uk>]

At 17:00 14/12/97 -0500, Simeon Simeonov wrote:

Thanks very much Simeon,


>I come to this discussion late (4:30pm EST on Sunday :) so my set of
>assorted notes is addressed at no one in particular.
>
>I like the acronym SAX. It's short and sweet.

So do I.

>
[...]
>
>A note of caution. I hope that in your mind SAX is not the same as SAX-J.
>Some of the API proposals I have seen have a very strong Java flavor. For

I agree with your point - personally I have no idea how to write a language
independent API, but for this one I suspect it's fairly straightforward
because of the relative simplicity.

>example, I see the need for an API that does not require runtime type
>information. The equivalent of instanceof in C++ is the dynamic_cast<T>()
>operator. It requires the enabling of RTTI which imposes an immediate and
>quite noticeable size and performance penalty. IMHO, runtime type
>information is necessary only when the object model of a system is
>undergoing continuous change. I don't see this being the case with SAX.

This seems to make sense. I think the main area where this might be used is
in children, where a child could be either an Element or PCDATA, and you
found out which by asking it. I assume it can be managed with strong typing
as well.
 
>
>I cannot invest the time in writing an XML parser in C++ right now, but I'd
>be more than happy to contribute to this discussion to make sure that SAX is
>a C++-friendly API.

I think that's a very useful offer :-)

I have been thinking as we go how we manage other languages like tcl and
Perl (I know tcl, but not Perl).  I assume some parts of the interface can
almost be translated algorithmically, but others may be tricky. [Even I am
not going to ask for a FORTRAN interface :-)]

	P.

>
>Regards,
>
>Simeon Simeonov
>Allaire
>
>
>xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@ic.ac.uk
>Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/
>To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message;
>(un)subscribe xml-dev
>To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message;
>subscribe xml-dev-digest
>List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)
>
>
Peter Murray-Rust, Director Virtual School of Molecular Sciences, domestic
net connection
VSMS http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/vsms, Virtual Hyperglossary
http://www.venus.co.uk/vhg

xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@ic.ac.uk
Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/
To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message;
(un)subscribe xml-dev
To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message;
subscribe xml-dev-digest
List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)