[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Deterministic behavior in processors
At 23:16 04/08/98 -0700, Tim Bray wrote: >At 02:00 PM 8/4/98 -0400, Dean Roddey wrote: [...] >>It would serve >>everyone's best interests (IMHO) to have a very tight specification in which >>there are very few optional reactions to the same circumstances. > >Basically I think this concern is reasonable, and the fact that the So do I. I have always worried about what the parser actually does and emits. >As a registered minimalist, it never really bothered me, because I >have always thought that external entities were pretty bogus outside >the authoring arena anyhow, and anybody who sends anything across the >wire had better either: > >(a) guarantee no external entities, or >(b) potentially have external entities AND specify use of a validating > processor This really worries me and puts me in the rocks-in-head category. I have blithely assumed that external entities were a good thing. They represent a way of re-using and normalising information. I've even been telling people they are a good thing. > >In both of these scenarios the behavior is completely deterministic. > >I think that anyone who sends XML across the wire and uses external >entities and does not specify a validating processor has rocks in their >head and deserves what they get. Gulp. That's me. I have been reading the spec on and off for two years and I have clearly failed to understand this. I am suffering from SAXocephaly. I use the following construct frequently: <!DOCTYPE FOO [ <!ENTITY a SYSTEM "a.xml"> <!ENTITY b SYSTEM "b.xml"> ]> <FOO> &a; &b; </FOO> I have briefly re-read the spec and it's not immediately clear to me where it says that a NVP is allowed to neglect a and b if it's feeling lazy. (It does say that if these are in an external subset they can be neglected, I think.) I would hesitate to criticise the spec but if the above document does not mean what I think it should mean (or worse, depends on what software I use) then I have serious problems. I *can't* use a validating parser because it's impossible to construct a DTD for the complex information in a.xml and b.xml (uses at least 4 namespaces). I don't want a parser which bombs on the first 'invalidity' fatal error - i.e. doesn't have a DTD. P. Peter Murray-Rust, Director Virtual School of Molecular Sciences, domestic net connection VSMS http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/vsms, Virtual Hyperglossary http://www.venus.co.uk/vhg xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|