Re: [xml] streaming XML

[Daniel Veillard <veillard redhat com>]

On Fri, Jul 30, 2004 at 09:40:27PM -0400, Bob Rossi wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I hope this isn't a silly question.
>
> I was wondering if libxml is good at parsing streaming XML documents.
> What I mean by this is, is libxml capable of recieving 1 char at a time,
> and then telling if it is done parsing a document and the status of the
> document? Or does it have to be given the whole document up front?

  libxml2 support streaming. There is 2 APIs: SAX and the reader for this.
I also support progressive parsing (i.e. chunk by chunk, progressive parsing
and streaming are different concepts).
BUT it *cannot* tell it is done parsing an XML document, no XML parser can
do that for the very simple reason that an XML document is defined by the
following grammar:

  http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-well-formed
  [1] document ::= prolog element Misc*

The Misc* means the end of the root element is not the end of the document
and you cannot predict how many Misc element will be available. The environment
*must* tell the parser when the document is finished.

Daniel

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