Re: [gdome] Future development of gdome

[Daniel Veillard <Daniel Veillard w3 org>]

Raph Levien <raph acm org> wrote in the gdome mailing-list:
[one of the prossibilities w.r.t. gdome (DOM) implementation]
>    Using our own data structures would avoid inconsistencies between
> the gnome-xml data structures and DOM. In particular, gnome-xml uses
> hashtables to store dtd items, while DOM requires a list structure.
> It's possible to change gnome-xml to fix this (and is in fact a
> wishlist bug: http://bugs.gnome.org/db/51/5190.html).

By doing this you would loose directly 80% of libxml code usefulness,
and definitely more in the long term, DOM manipulations are just one
of the interractions one may use XML/HTML structure for:
    - searching (XPath Xpointer).
    - hypertext (Xlink)
    - validation
    - export/translation
    - transformations
by moving to your own structure the libxml code in those area won't
be usable in the Gnome/DOM framework.

  I agreed to made changes to ease DOM implementation, they include :

  - provide the list structures from your wish list
  - reunify all the DOM adressable data structure so that for most of the
    operation you won't need a switch on the type and working with
    a casted pointer

  I suggest to make those changes which will break binary compatibility
at version 2.0 . The 2.0 release is overwise mostly dependant on adding
proper I18N support.

  One think I will need to know from the DOM implementors
is whether they need the 2 pointer fields present at the beginning 
of the DOM adressable nodes:

struct _xmlNode {
#ifndef XML_WITHOUT_CORBA
    void           *_private;   /* for Corba, must be first ! */
    void           *vepv;       /* for Corba, must be next ! */
#endif

 I would happily remove them if not needed. Also tell me if something
else is specifically needed for DOM operation. I understand that
having a pointer to an application (be it DOM or other) datatype
may still be useful. Feedback on those issues is needed,

Daniel.

-- 
Daniel Veillard w3 org | W3C, INRIA Rhone-Alpes  | Today's Bookmarks :
Tel : +33 476 615 257  | 655, avenue de l'Europe | Linux XML libxml WWW
Fax : +33 476 615 207  | 38330 Montbonnot FRANCE | Gnome rpm2html rpmfind
 http://www.w3.org/People/all#veillard%40w3.org  | RPM badminton Kaffe