RE: [xml] Providing standard COM modules (Was: [xslt] Thread safe ?)

["Vakoc, Mark" <Mark_Vakoc jdedwards com>]

Hello Daniel, All,

>   I have the horrible feeling that most of the libxml2/libxslt Windows
> users did as a first step of the integration of the library 
> in their project
> a COM wrapper. And I also sense that the Right Thing to do at 
> this point is
> to try to provide a standardized COM module for those libraries.

While some may have exposed the core functionality of parsing XML docs and
performing transformations through COM, I doubt (m)any have exposed the
internals (xml tree) or xslt extensions through COM.  This would be a
tremendous amount of wrapper work with little gain over MSXML.  The power of
libxml2 is it's speed, adherence to standards, low resource usage, and
strong support through the mailing lists of its internals.

> <business_talk>
...
> </business_talk>

> anything on my users), but I would like the Windows users 
> community to realize
> that building and sharing a common default COM wrapper object might be
> in everybody's best interest and that I would really welcome 
> Mark, Igor and
> other people in that situation to drive such an effort. Maybe I'm just
> totally off-track w.r.t. what COM is or the possibility of agreeing on
> a common object model, in that case feel free to hit me with your
> preferred clue bat !

I think a COM wrapper is a little off track, but you aren't off track at
all.  I use COM to interface with Internet Explorer directly, not to access
the libxml/libxslt internals directly.  We all benefit from this project.  I
would like to contribute anything I've done that may be of interest to
others.  How about creating a contrib directory where people can add their
extensions/enhancements that may have global appeal but need not be included
in the library itself?  Obviously a xslt:// asynchronous pluggable protocol
for IE or IStream buffer routines for libxml2 shouldn't be included in the
library itself, but others may benefit from such contributions.

>   The ball is in your camp ! You're not forced to play :-)

Ah, Daniel, its NHL playoffs time.  A hockey reference would have been so
much better :)