RE: A simple guy with a simple problem

[Danny Ayers <danny@panlanka.net>]

I was curious to see how far I could get towards solving Bob's problem using
SAX, and the more I looked the more problems I encountered. I was stumped
before I even started coding.

Maybe Mr. Megginson might have something to say on Bob's little problem?

I'll take the traditional route and wrap 'it was a stupid problem anyway' in
something arguably valid : Bob's manager's son-in-law is looking for a job,
and so any conclusions from this task won't reflect the relative merits of
different approaches to real-world problems.

I was strongly deterred, but I couldn't resist hacking a Java SAX echo just
to see how straightforward that could be.
http://www.isacat.net/2001/code/echo/echo.htm if anyone wants to try the
tricky bits.

BTW, how well does the XSL version work?

Cheers,
Danny.

fyi, the echo did this (prolog & doctype hardcoded):

*before*
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE foo SYSTEM "foo.dtd" [
<!ENTITY bar "This is entity STUFF and some more
STUFF.">
]>
<foo>
<lit text="hello">
<![CDATA[This is literal STUFF and some more STUFF.]]>
</lit>
<lit>
&bar;
</lit>
</foo>

*after*
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE foo SYSTEM "foo.dtd">
<foo><lit text="hello">
This is literal STUFF and some more STUFF.
</lit><lit text="STUFF">
This is entity STUFF and some more
STUFF.
</lit></foo>





---
Danny Ayers
http://www.isacat.net

<- -----Original Message-----
<- From: Sean McGrath [mailto:sean@digitome.com]
<- Sent: 15 March 2001 16:57
<- To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
<- Subject: RE: A simple guy with a simple problem
<-
<-
<- I am stunned at the number of people who have suggested
<- lexical processing to solve this problem. And worse, in one
<- case, a suggestion that I was trolling with this simple
<- example!
<-
<- Come on guys! Remember this is a B2B problem Bob has.
<- He cannot know in advance what he is getting across
<- the wire other than that it is kosher XML and he
<- has the DTD for it.
<-
<- To those who suggested using SAX, I suggest you fire
<- up your text editor and try it yourself. As a service
<- to the XML community, I suggest you then report
<- back with what you discovered.
<-
<- Lets try again, with another document Bob received:-
<-
<- <?foo bar?>
<- <!DOCTYPE foo SYSTEM "foo.dtd" [
<- <!ENTITY bar "this is some ST">
<- <!ENTITY biz "UFF">
<- ]>
<-
<- <foo>
<- <lit text="hello">
<- <![CDATA[This is literal
<- STU]]><![CDATA[ FF]]>
<- </lit>
<- <lit>
<- &bar;&biz;
<- </lit>
<- </foo>
<-
<- regards,
<- Sean McGrath (replying for Bob who is busily reading "Mastering Regular
<- Expressions").
<-
<-
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