Re: New/old pattern syntax, why can't we have both ?

James Robertson wrote:
> 
> At 19:23 19/08/1998 , you wrote:
> 
>   | I think that the solution is very simple.
>   |
>   | The new syntax should be seen as a shorthand for the full, verbose, XML
>   | form.
>   |
>   | It would be the parser responsibility to translate the compact form into
>   | the normalised, "canonical" fully-XML form so that the application
>   | programmer can be oblivious of this syntax details.
> 
> How does this resolve the problem?
> 
> This approach means that:
> 
> * Custom parsers still need to be written for XSL.
> 
> * They still need to be able to parse the "shorthand" form.
> 
> * They would then be required to do an additional mapping
>   to a "long" form.
> 
> Isn't this more work, not less, and still leaves the
> _very_ undesirable situation of having "non-XML" XML?

You don't need to touch the existing XML parsers.

You would write a layer that will plug in the existing SAX or DOM
interface of your XML parser, expand the 
short form if detected and return, again through SAX or DOM, the
expanded XML.

This would need to be written only once and might work with any SAX/DOM
XML parser. 

What you would get in exchange it is the possibility of using the input
form that you prefer.
 
-- 
Pasqualino "Titto" Assini  ---  assini@xxxxxxxx  
Kamus Internet Consulting  ---  http://www.kamus.it/



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