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I'm working on a XML/web
services related project. It's interesting to note that all
my XML processing needs can be met by xpath. xpath also is much simpler to
program than DOM/SAX. This makes me wondering if one can directly
build xpath engine and bypass the parsing step.
Before going down the route, I'd like to hear
your expert's view on this subject. If I just implement xpath directly to
access XML files, without a parser layer, would I run into problems later?
Even though I don't see a need for DOM/SAX now, I'm afraid that in the
future there my be something that require them. It would be great
if you can provide me a common case of where xpath is not sufficient
and a parser is needed.
I think the same thought has been applied by
Java binding people. In my original view of XML processing, the flow goes
like:
XML file --> parsing
--> binding or accessing
Java binding people skiped the parsing step.
Is it a good idea for accessing people to also skip the parsing
step?
A bolder hypothesis (with
limited knowledge) is: one can always find a shortcut to bypass
parsing, to serve higher level application's needs. If it's true then DOM/SAX
will gradually disappear from real products, because of their respective
shortcomings. xpath seems to be a better step stone for lots of other processing
to base on.
Thanks,
Hui
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