xml-dev - Re: xml parser question

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

At 07:33 PM 6/27/00 +0100, Dave Pawson wrote:
>In moving some stuff from SGML to xml, I keep falling
>foul of the xml parsers doing what they should!
>
>Some stuff from LINUXDOC has all its version details in
>an external file, ref'd by entities. I'm trying to use
>sgmlnorm, sx and xt to get it into xml. In the finished
>documents I want (would like) the entities back in place so that writers
>can see 'In version &latest; .... etc.'
>
>As part of the parse by sx, xt etc, all the ents are resolved
>to 4.4.1 or whatever version is being referred to.
>
>How much hassle is it to add a switch to a parser to say
>'leave them alone' please?

I don't have my machine with me but I'm almost certain that Xerces from
xml.apache.org has such a switch.  If it is set the entityreferences pass
through as you wish.

>
>Do others have to work round this? 
>Bottom line I want a 'pass-through' option available.
>I could pre-process or post-process, but I was wondering
>if its an odd-ball request to have it done as part of 
>a wholly xml process?
>
No. XML V1.0 doesn't specify many aspects of what a parser might do. I
don't think it even says there must be any "output" - simply that a
document must be assembled. There was certainly no API. This is why we
initiated SAX on this list. I think it would be useful to have a "standard"
list of parser switches - this also covers validation, etc.

	P.


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