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Re: 15 elementary truths about XML

• From: Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi@gmx.net>
• To: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>
• Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 19:29:51 +0100

* Costello, Roger L. wrote:
>1. An XML file is a sequence of zeros and ones called bits.

The file contents might be, but a "file" usually has other data than the
bits of its contents, like a file name.

>2. A sequence of 8 bits is called a byte.

If you have a 32 bit value then the sequence of eight bits starting with
the 3rd would not be called a byte usually.

>3. Thus, an XML file is a sequence of bytes.

That does not follow, and it's not true either, you can easily make a
form of storage that aligns on bit boundaries rather than bytes, that
just happens to be unusual currently.

>6. XML processors always interpret the bytes in XML files as characters.

With the exception of the Unicode signature.

>10. An XML application is software that processes the bytes in an XML file.
>
>11. An XML processor is an XML application. As discussed above, it interprets
>the bytes in XML files as a sequence of characters.

This is incompatible with the terminology in the XML specification where
the application is what controls the XML processor, roughly speaking.

>13. XML applications may interpret the bytes in XML files differently
>than how an XML processor interprets the bytes.

An XML processor does not usually inform the application of the bytes in
some file, so this is confusing the relationships here.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
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• References:
  • 15 elementary truths about XML
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>