Re: [boost] [Boost Review] Property Tree Library

From: Joel de Guzman (joel_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-04-22 13:28:40

Thorsten Ottosen wrote:
> Marcin Kalicinski wrote:

>> I was not aware that includes are connected with namespaces. I think my XML 
>> knowledge is not does not stand up to the need. I based my parser on Dan 
>> Nuffer's sources, and hope he got the corner cases right :-) On the other 
>> hand, if boost gets its XML library, my XML parser will be nothing more but 
>> obsolete, so it may not be worthwhile to spend too much time on it at the 
>> moment.
> 
> There are a number of applications that just needs a simple xml-parser. 
> For example, most of the xml-files in my company are simple recursive
> structures with a single id="42" attribute here and there. But that id 
> could easily be put into a tag instead.
> 
> I have not yet understood why xml needs to be so sophisticated, and will 
> probably continue to ignore all those wierd an advanced xml-features.
> 
> Anyway, Marcin's parser also builds a ptree which is a great benefit 
> compared to the DOM parsers I have seen.
> 
> Just make sure it is well-defined what subset of xml that can be parsed 
> and what cannot. In spirit of the library, anything that is not really 
> easy and simple to support, should be rejected.

I agree. I have the same observation. Most practical uses of XML
are actually very simple. I too do not understand why XML needs
to be so sophisticated. In light of this discussion and with the
development of Spirit-2, I'm interested to write such a "minimal"
XML parser. What I would like to know is, what that well-defined
subset of xml is (as simple as it can get but still practically
useful). I bet the result would be a lean-mean machine.

(I'm cross posting to the spirit list)

Regards,
-- 
Joel de Guzman
http://www.boost-consulting.com
http://spirit.sf.net