RE: Why Doesn't IE5 use the DTD to Validate?

Chris Lilley <chris@xxxxxx> wrote:

> > The IE5 XML parser is a validating parser, with two properties set through
> > DOM extensions to control DTD handling:
> >  - validateOnParse determines whether validation errors are presented ...
>
> So, it always validates, but the flag controls whether error messages
> are shown? That sounds fine, until you realise that if a validating
> parser founfd an error then not only do you have error messages, you
> also have no parse tree. So, what gets displayed? Presumably, some
> fixed-up, error-corrected tree. I expect that the error-correction is
> not documented. So, back to the mess that HTML is in - no-one jknows
> what the parse tree is. I fail to see how you can call this a feature.

IE5 halts on well-formedness errors (as per the spec). And it's easy to build
parse trees from well-formed but invalid XML:

	<?xml version="1.0"?>
	<!DOCTYPE duckbill [
	<!ELEMENT platypus (bananas)>
	]>
	<doc>
	  <p>Hello world</p>
	</doc>

You can build a parse tree from "doc" and "p", even though the document is
invalid.

But any XML browser should at least have a validate button...


/Jelks

<<attachment: winmail.dat>>