xml-dev - Re: Why the Infoset?

[John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>]

At 02:37 PM 8/2/00 -0400, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:

> The debate over the Infoset might be clarified and sharpened by
> considering the following normative statement, to be added to the
> Infoset spec:
>
> Whenever two XML textual constructs map into a single construct of
> the Infoset, an XML processor must produce identical output for those
> textual constructs.

I think this requirement is way too strong, and leads to one of
two extreme positions:

1) A minimal Infoset that reports only those things a non-validating
parser must report: nothing about external entities, no DTD information,
no element names (well, maybe element names).

2) Require all parsers to be full validating parsers, and defined the
Infoset in terms of what full validating parsers do.

Clearly #1 makes the Infoset useless, and #2 will cause a massive uproar.
But an intermediate position will either let two constructs be
distinct in the Infoset but not in a parser, or vice versa.

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
C'est la` pourtant que se livre le sens du dire, de ce que, s'y conjuguant
le nyania qui bruit des sexes en compagnie, il supplee a ce qu'entre eux,
de rapport nyait pas.               -- Jacques Lacan, "L'Etourdit"


-- 

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
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Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,           || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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