Re: [xml] xmllint: Why does it convert UTF-8 to numeric entity refs?

[David Sewell <dsewell virginia edu>]

On Mon, 4 Aug 2003, Daniel Veillard wrote:

> > (It would be nice to have an optional flag to xmllint allowing a choice
> > of output between characters and numeric refs.)
>
>   There is just too many option already, and this would require propagating
> one more set of flags for the serialization routine. I see no justification
> for adding more complexity to the serializer. The outputs are equivalent
> anyway, as soon as the data is processed by an XML parser both version
> cannot be distinguished,

Yes, I understand this. I should have explained that my main concern is
when using "--format" to reformat source XML code. If the purpose of
running xmllint is to provide code that is easier for a human to work
with (as opposed to a parser), UTF-8 is often preferable to ASCII +
numeric entity references. For example, if one does not have a parsing
XML editor and needs to use a plain Unicode-aware text editor like Vim
to edit XML documents that contain a lot of Chinese, Arabic, etc.

Anyway, there are other programs out there to do XML reformatting
(although some of them are buggy), so I would not consider this a high
priority for xmllint.

Thanks,

David Sewell

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