Re: [xml-dev] To continue parsing after a fatal error.

[Jeff Greif <jgreif@alumni.princeton.edu>]

If the spec says it should be fatal, I agree, it should be treated as such.
It's also pretty easy to stream the text through an illegal-character filter
(on Unix or with cygwin installed on Win32, use the tr program) on the way
into the XML parser,
Jeff
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joshua Allen" <joshuaa@microsoft.com>
To: "Jeff Greif" <jgreif@alumni.princeton.edu>; "Anoop A V"
<anoop_scorpio@hotmail.com>; <xml-dev@lists.xml.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2001 1:17 PM
Subject: RE: [xml-dev] To continue parsing after a fatal error.


Actually, the invalid character error is per the XML 1.0 spec fatal.  If
Microsoft were to deviate from the W3C spec and make this ignorable, we
would deserve the roasting we would get at the merciless hands of
xml-dev list members.  The reasoning behind the rule is that it prevents
the spread of malformed XML, and thereby preserves interoperability.
This is a good and necessary reason, although it is not much consolation
when you are stuck trying to clean up bad XML.  We should have some
tools to make this easier..