SAX-ext proposal #6: parser versioning

[David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net>]

Parser identification

- There is no conventional way for applications to identify the version
  of the parser they are using, for purposes of diagnostics or other
  kinds of troubleshooting.

- The best the JVM supports is the JDK 1.2 java.lang.Package facility,
  depending on JARfile metadata.  It provides a partial solution, at
  the price of portability (JDK 1.1 APIs are much more portable) and
  assumptions like "one parser per package".

PROPOSAL

    - Define a new standard property ID:

 http://xml.org/sax/properties/reader-version
   Read-only

   Returns a string identifying the reader and its version.
   This is intended for use in diagnostics.
    
      Parsers could support that if desired, probably using some sort
      of resource-based mechanism (not necessarily Package) to keep
      such release-specific strings out of the source code.
    
QUESTIONS:

    - Should there be separate strings to ID the reader (likely a
      constant value) and its version (ideally assigned in release
      engineering)?