Re: [boost] [XML] Searching for an XML parsing library in boost

From: Stefan Seefeld (seefeld_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-03-01 14:40:56

Robert Ramey wrote:
> Boris Kolpackov wrote:

>> My uneducated guess is that "spirit-based XML grammar" is not a
>> conforming XML parser.
> 
> Not relevant.
> 
> The question isn't which features the particular XML parser included
> with spirite supports.  Any missing features could be added to the
> grammar without too much problem - that's the appeal of using
> a grammar driven approach.

That is also the appeal of "Let's reinvent it !". There are XML
parsers out there that support all the above. Why not use them ?

>> The next question is how much effort it will take to fix it up
> 
> Much less than hand coding yet another xml parser.

True. But much more than using an existent (compliant) parser.

>> and whether it will still be as robust, maintainable,
> 
> A parser generated from a formal grammar is going to be
> much more robust, and maintainable. The grammar can
> be vrified independently of the implementaion.

The XML 'grammar' is in fact the most trivial aspect of it.

>> The reason why you had good results with serialization library
>> is because you control both production and consumption of the
>> instances so you can easily restrict yourself to a subset of XML.
> 
> The reason I had good results with spirit with serialization library
> is that it's good, robust, well designed and well documented code.
> I built on that.

What features of XML are you using ? External subsets or any other
URLs that need to be looked up ? XInclude support to make documents
modular ? Etc., etc.

>> Once you need to process *any* valid XML things get a lot more
>> complicated.
> 
> Which is even more reason to avoid a hand coded parser.

I think you (still) totally miss the point. Sorry.

                Stefan

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