Re: [xml-dev] Error and Fatal Error

[Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>]

> I think we need a parser which understands the
> slightly erroneous XML and can find any errors in it:
> In short we need a parser which has an API which
> can allow the web developer (in this case with .NET)
> to repair XML.
>
I find it very useful to have a Java IDE which can turn what I type into 
syntactically correct Java, especially as it's both configurable and 
interactive so I can tell it what rules to apply in doing this job. But 
I wouldn't want the Java compiler itself to silently make assumptions 
about what I intended when I give it incorrect source code.

Similarly I think there's a distinction between what an XML parser 
should do, and what a data cleansing tool might attempt in terms of 
turning garbage into XML.

And I'm not sure that data cleansing tools need to be interoperable, in 
which case there is no reason for standards organisations to get 
involved in designing how they should work.

That's not to say, of course, that the spec couldn't be a bit more 
liberal in its definition of well-formed XML; for example it could allow 
the whitespace between attributes to be omitted, or it could allow "--" 
in comments, or it could allow "&" to represent itself if not followed 
by a name character. But changing the definition of the language is one 
thing; encouraging parsers to accept things that the language disallows 
is another.

Michael Kay
Saxonica