xml-dev - Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Proposed SAX Revisions

["David G. Durand" <dgd@cs.bu.edu>]

I read the revisions, and they're very sensible. But I have one deletion
request, and one addition request.

I don't believe the arguments about the uselessness of Doctype. Until this
proposal, I didn't see any reason to argue about it, however. Leave
Doctype in. Those who find it useless won't use it. It's sure not so
hard to implement that requiring it is a hardship on parser writers, so I
fail to see why it shouldn't be kept.

Please, please, please, allow me a way to find out if an element was
"empty". (i.e. written <e/>). I use this information when I write DTDs, and
intend to continue doing so. I also know, from the long discussions in the
XML-SIG that I am not alone in using this syntax to represent a distinction
that I want preserved and detectable by applications.

Probably the best way to handle this might be to have an extra flag argument
on the element end event (to indicate this element end was not present in
the document). This lets people who care about whether an element was empty
find out, without greatly inconveniencing people who want to follow the
simpler "every element is a container" model.

  -- David
------------------------------------------+----------------------------
David Durand                 dgd@cs.bu.edu| david@dynamicDiagrams.com
Boston University Computer Science        | Dynamic Diagrams
http://www.cs.bu.edu/students/grads/dgd/  | http://dynamicDiagrams.com/
                                          | MAPA: mapping for the WWW



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