Re: [boost] [GSOC] XML library of Boost

Subject: Re: [boost] [GSOC] XML library of Boost
From: Stefan Seefeld (stefan_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-05-05 13:00:08

On 05/05/2013 05:53 AM, Bjorn Reese wrote:

> Here is an alternative suggestion. Parsing the XML syntax is fairly
> simple, so we could provide a basic XML parser for those with simple
> needs.

Define "simple needs". I bet there are as many different expectations
for that as you ask people.
How would you package boost.xml, to offer these different
implementations with varying feature sets ? I don't see any reasonable
way to achieve that.

In contrast, there are a couple of well-established APIs to deal with
XML (notably SAX, XMLReader, and DOM), it just so happens that none of
them are available as standard C++ APIs.

I strongly believe that boost.xml should support APIs to parse XML
documents (SAX and XMLReader, say), as well as to navigate and
manipulate XML Infosets (DOM).
I agree that the APIs should be simple and modular, but I don't see any
way to let a single library implementation generate multiple differing
DOM trees, for example. That would turn into a nightmare for library
maintainers, packagers, and users alike.

    Stefan

-- 
      ...ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin...