Re: [boost] [xml] Brainstorming / Request for Comments, Suggestions, Opinions ...

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-09-07 14:58:47

Sebastian Redl wrote:

> I know that two Boost-internal uses could work with a pull API very
> well: Property Tree's XML reader and the Serialization XML archive.
>
>
> To sum up, I do believe we should reinvent the wheel here. But we
> should create an improved wheel, and I think the Boost community is
> uniquely
> suited to
> create a wheel that works particularly well with C++.
>

If you've looked at serialization of xml you'll see that it uses spirit and 
an xml grammer derived from a complete one included in the spirit library. 
If you really don't want to re-invent the wheel, they why not just use the 
same approach?  The spirit library contains a very complete XML grammer 
already. I don't recall this even having been considered - much less 
rejected.  Creating XML is easy.  Handling issues of code conversion (e.g. 
from locale specific code to UTF-8 or UTF-16) is easily handled with i/o 
stream facets - some of which are also already available. It is also already 
"Boost Friendly" and works with all boost platforms.  It also does most of 
the heavy lifting at compile time - very much in line with other boost 
tools.  I can't understand why any other approach would be attractive for 
users of other boost libraries.   To me the whole idea is "re-inventing the 
wheel"

Robert Ramey