Re: XML libs (was Re: gconf backend)

[Sander Vesik <Sander Vesik Sun COM>]

Peter Williams wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> On Sat, 2003-09-27 at 16:49, Havoc Pennington wrote:
>
> > I essentially agree that:
> >
> > - XML is too hard for apps to get right 
> > - we should try to use it anyway, as best we can
> >
> > I would add:
> >
> > - sometimes it's OK to restrict the XML features you can use in a 
> >   particular context, as long as you fail gracefully
>
>
> Well, I know I shouldn't volunteer code for someone else to write, but
> perhaps we can make a layer that sits on top of libxml and has some
> guarantees:
>
> 	* Bomb if anything "complicated" happens (namespaced elements, PIs). Or
> just ignore them.
> 	* Perform some canonical set of entity substitutions
> 	* Expose an XmlTextReader or SAX-like interface
> 	* Maybe add hooks for the app to complain about illegal content a la
> Havoc's color values
>
> In general, it seems to me that it should be possible to make something
> that reads/writes compliant XML but doesn't force the app programmer to
> write a lot of boilerplate code like:
>
> 	if (element_namespace != NULL)
> 		bomb ("Unexpected XML content.");
> 	
> Anyway, it seems like the reasonable way to develop a simple API for
> simple XML is on top of a more complex API for more complex XML, rather
> than starting fresh.

Uhh... It rather sounds like there should be an api that goes basicly 
like this:

ProcessAllThatXmlStuff("path_to_xml_file.xml", "path_to_spec.xml");

where path_to_spec.xml is a libglade style really simple xml file 
letting the developer specify just what it wants done...

> Peter