Re: We need an XPath API

[Charles Reitzel <creitzel@mediaone.net>]

Thanks for the update/reminder.  If I understand you right, a Candidate Recommendation is imminent for Infoset that omits the CDATA begin/end markers.  

The Infoset is probably not important to an XPath API - at least not directly.  The models that are important are XPath, of course, and the de facto standard models: DOM and SAX.  If the Infoset gains its own interface, then an XPathInfosetHelper can be built at that time.

take it easy,
Charles Reitzel


At 01:33 AM 3/7/01 +0000, Paul Grosso wrote:
>Some points of information:
>
>Earlier drafts of the Infoset spec did have cdata section start/end
>markers.  The Last Call announcement that I made on xml-dev over 
>a month ago [1] pointed out the issue of cdata section markers
>as a Specific feedback request issue with pointers to both pro
>and con positions.  During Last Call, we got a preponderance of
>opinion for omitting cdata section start/end markers from the
>infoset, and that is the decision that the XML Core WG took at
>our comment resolution discussion last week.  So the Infoset
>spec will not include cdata section start/end markers.
>
>The XPath data model [2] does not include cdata section markers.
>The spec quite clearly lists 7 types of nodes in the data model:
>root, element, text, attribute, namespace, processing instruction,
>comment.  So cdata sections are not in the model.  Later, under
>Text Nodes [3], it discusses how to convert cdata sections into
>regular text nodes when mapping to the XPath data model.
>
>The XPath 1.0 data model does not use the Infoset (mostly because
>the Infoset wasn't ready in time), though efforts have been made
>to keep the models generally consistent with one another.  But the
>current definition of the Infoset as a "set of definitions for use 
>in other specifications" means that the omission of some piece of 
>information from the infoset doesn't prevent some other spec from 
>making use of that information.
>
>paul
>
>[1] http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200102/msg00064.html
>[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath#data-model
>[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath#section-Text-Nodes 


take it easy,
Charles Reitzel