xml-dev - Re: Between raw and cooked II: Are? DTDs are just for validation

[David Brownell <db@eng.sun.com>]

> Jonathan Borden writes:
> 
>  > Beyond requiring that external entities and default attributes be
>  > expanded, is there a way to allow non- and validating parsers to
>  > process the same XML documents in a functionally similar fashion,
>  > that is, the same SAX events be fired or the same DOM tree be
>  > constructed whether or not validation is employed?

Absolutely:  when a nonvalidating parser reads all external entities,
it behaves almost exactly like a validating parser that's configured
to ignore validity errors.

Differences are minor ... ignorable whitespace must be reported
as such by the validating parser, as must unparsed entities.  But
nonvalidating parsers are free to report this info through SAX,
and quite a lot of them do.  Aelfred was the first, and Sun's does
too (both validating and nonvalidating options).

- Dave

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