Re: [xml-dev] If XML is too hard for a programmer, perhaps he'd b e better off as a crossing guard

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

tbray@textuality.com (Tim Bray) writes:
>> I'm currently writing code for selectively inserting and removing
>> CDATA sections from documents, largely because a a certain
>> data-centric piece of software insists on adding them any time I try
>> to use markup in its fields.  It is an exercise in silliness, but
>> sometimes that silliness comes from the data side.
>
>Couldn't you just run it through Perl's XML::Parser or equivalent?  

I don't think so, unless XML::Parser has added functionality way beyond
expat's core - which tells me a CDATA section is starting or ending but
doesn't let me scream "IGNORE THAT CDATA SECTION MARKER AND PARSE THE
DAMN CONTENT NORMALLY!" 

I'm in the classically stupid position where the export is generating:

<root>
...
<repeatingNode1><![CDATA[This is in <b>bold</b>, or at least it should
be.]]></repeatingNode1>
<repeatingNode2>content</repeatingNode2>
....
</root>


and what I actually want is:
<root>
...
<repeatingNode1>This is in <b>bold</b>, or at least it should
be.</repeatingNode1>
<repeatingNode2>content</repeatingNode2>
....
</root>


More creatively, there may also be times where the use of CDATA sections
is appropriate, so simply nuking all of them isn't the right answer
either.  Fixing these kinds of things takes a bit of work, which is what
I'm doing at the moment.

-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com -- http://monasticxml.org