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RE: Internal entities removed from XML?

• To: "'Xml-Dev@Lists. Xml. Org (E-mail)'" <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: Internal entities removed from XML?
• From: "Cavnar-Johnson, John" <JCavnar-Johnson@s...>
• Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 21:37:43 -0600
• Cc: 'Doug Ransom' <Doug.Ransom@p...>
• Disposition-notification-to: "John Cavnar-Johnson" <jcavnar-johnson@s...>
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <E0934FFEF848EA46AB416E7B9581457D0D2B55@c...>

What are you talking about?  Do you have some examples?  There are
several examples in the help files that come with the framework that
show how to work with XML entities (both internal and external DTD).
These examples show using entities with XmlDocument, XmlNodeReader, and
XmlValidatingReader.  If you search the .NET help files for the word
"entity", you will find tons of information on how to work with entities
in your XML files.  How does this add up to "Microsoft has essentially
removed entity references from XML"? You make some awfully sweeping
statements that seem to be belied by the rather extensive .NET help
documentation on using XML entities.

I would really like you to send me a copy of a well-formed XML file that
will make my .NET xml processor "barf".

-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Ransom [mailto:Doug.Ransom@p...] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 8:46 PM
To: Xml-Dev@Lists. Xml. Org (E-mail)
Subject:  Internal entities removed from XML?

With the Microsoft .net (dotnet) platform, it seems one really has to go
out of ones way to develop code which can read an XML file with entity
references, even internal entity references.  I ran into this when I
tried some XSLT programs that worked successfully with saxon (java based
xslt processor) and msxsl (COM based xslt processor) with a .net based
XSLT processor.  

The default mechanismsms (XMLReader and XMLDocument) to load and read
XML documents or XSLT programs simply fail when presented with a valid
XSLT program which is serialized in valid XML.  

I wonder if a whole bunch of existing XML files that work fine with
existing applications are going to break new applications designed to
work with the same XML documents (i.e. a .net XSLT processor to replace
msxsl).  I suspect there are a fair number of valid XML documents out
there that simply won't parse under .net.

I think Microsoft has essentially removed entity references from XML,
because now document authors won't dare produce XML documents that the
majority of programs built on the .net platform will barf on.  Users
will be pretty upset at an author if they receive an XML document from
them which won't load with their .net program.  

The WS-Interoperability profile also suggests entities not be used in
SOAP messages.  It seems like there are two versions of XML now;  one
that works with .net and WS-I, and an  XML 1.0 document with a DOCTYPE
section that cannot be parsed by what will replace the most commonly
used XML Platform (as .net replaces COM on windows).

Any comments? Maybe removing entity references is a good thing (I know
implementators of embedded system platforms think so), and mabe
Microsoft is doing the right thing by making entity expansion a thing
developers have to go out of their way to make their software  perform.


Doug Ransom
 


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    • From: "Doug Ransom" <Doug.Ransom@p...>

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