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RE: MSXML DOM Special Chars Less Than 32

• To: <michael.h.kay@n...>,"Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>,<xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: MSXML DOM Special Chars Less Than 32
• From: "Joshua Allen" <joshuaa@m...>
• Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 14:30:20 -0800
• Thread-index: AcHRjUSDaIOQFjW6SP2zlQL4l+CD5QAYZ+xg
• Thread-topic: MSXML DOM Special Chars Less Than 32

> I don't want to dumb XML down. But we do sometimes need to store data
(e.g.
> WebDAV property values) which can potentially contain characters that
are
> not permitted in XML. In fact, it's very unlikely that a WebDAV
property
> value will contain such a character, but the software still needs to
allow
> for the possibility.

Why would someone want to use XML if they need to transmit illegal
characters?  There are usually two cases -- one is where the illegal
characters are insignificant, in which case they can be stripped and the
output is well-formed XML.  The other case is where the illegal
characters *are* significant, and must be preserved for round-trip.  But
if someone wants to round-trip characters that are clearly not permitted
by any XML processor in the world, why use XML?  That's like getting mad
because a car won't float.

> arguments. I guess the C lobby is sufficiently entrenched that we'll
never
> allow �, but apart from that I don't really see the need for 
> restrictions.

But that is exactly the point: even if we started again from scratch,
there exists a subset of characters that will end up being illegal.
There will also exist a certain population of users who disagree with
each illegal character choice.  There will additionally be a certain
population of implementers who disagree with the *permissiveness* of the
characters, since it makes their lives difficult, and they have to
handle characters in a way that is unnatural (NEL for Unix people, for
example).

So my point is that the set of illegal characters will always be an
arbitrary value-judgment that tries to balance between implementers and
users.  I do not think it is an objective "there is one right answer"
situation.

• Follow-Ups:
  • RE: MSXML DOM Special Chars Less Than 32
    • From: "Michael Kay" <michael.h.kay@n...>
  • RE: MSXML DOM Special Chars Less Than 32
    • From: "Julian Reschke" <julian.reschke@g...>

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