Re: [boost] Proposal: XML APIs in boost

From: Jez Higgins (jez_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-11-04 04:33:05

Stefan Seefeld wrote:
> 
> That's a good question. My initial proposal a couple of years ago had
> a SAX API. However, SAX has a number of shortcomings that make it hard
> or inapropriate to use (e.g., no namespaces !).
> 

That's not true.  SAX was extended to support namespaces above 5 years 
ago - see http://www.saxproject.org/ for the Java interface, or my 
Arabica library for a C++ version 
http://www.jezuk.co.uk/cgi-bin/view/arabica

> A better API that still follows the cursor-style approach from SAX,
> is the XMLReader. It uses a pull model instead of push, i.e. there
> are no callbacks, but instead the application advances the reader's
> internal cursor to the next 'token'.
> See http://xmlsoft.org/xmlreader.html for a comparison to SAX.

For some definition of better.  The unpleasantness with pull APIs is the 
token - you have to interrogate it for its actual type, and then 
dispatch.  In certain circumstances this obviously applies to the DOM 
too.  In other cases, and I accept that I might be unusual in this, SAX 
is the right thing to use.

Jez