Re: attribute order (RE: Syntax Sugar and XML information models)

[Jeff Greif <jgreif@befree.com>]

Even a non-validating parser must provide default values for the
attributes not present, if such defaults are specified in the doc's DTD
or schema.  If some element can have 1000 possible attributes, some mix
of which is present in each instance, and you have a doc with several
thousand of those elements, the parser will run very slowly if it cannot
put the attributes in a hashtable when trying to fill in the defaults.
Once it filled in even one default value, there is no longer an
attribute order to be preserved for that element instance (do the
defaulted attributes go at the beginning or end of the list, or
somewhere else?)


Jeff

"Simon St.Laurent" wrote:

>
>
> Is there some kind of processing advantage for _parsers_ (not
> applications)
> to report attribute values in any sequence other than their original
> sequence?
>