On 7/6/07, John H. Robinson, IV <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Bob La Quey wrote:
> >Stewart Stremler wrote:
> >
> >> Most scripting languages just execute configuration files, so they've
> >> basically got their own validating parser built-in.
> >
> >Yup. But they all differ, slightly.
>
> They all differ slightly and therein lies the problem.
> XML may be bloated. But is far better standardized than
> any of (note several subtly different) examples given.
The reason is there are many implementations of a very simple KEY VALUE
parser. Some more robust than others.
And also each is different because nearly
every KEY VALUE syntax is subtly different.
Between you and Stremler four of five formats
were produced in minutes. Multiply that by
many intelligent people and you have a recipe
for chaos; really Bable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel
Smart people seem to get stuck in sub-optimization.
Since it is for a _configuration_ file, that is fine as it is specfic to
the application, anyway. XML, on the other hand, is too complex to code
and throw away. You need a centralised library.
Let's see how many implementations I can find relatively quickly...
cl-s-xml - simple Common Lisp XML parser
libacexml5.4.7c2a - ACE SAX based XML parsing library
libdancer-xml0 - simplistic and non-comformant xml parser
libicexml31 - ZeroC Ice for C++ XML parser library
librexml-ruby - pure Ruby non-validating XML parser suppor
libwbxml2-0 - WBXML parsing and encoding library
libxml-feed-perl - Syndication feed parser and auto-discovery
libxml-light-ocaml-dev - mininal XML parser and printer for OCaml
libxml-parser-perl - Perl module for parsing XML files
pike-public.parser.xml2 - libxml2-based XML parser module for Pike
r-cran-xml - GNU R package for XML parsing and generati
tclxml - Tcl library for XML parsing
I do not want to place any bets that they all parse identically.
Especially the ones that say ``non-conformant'' or ``non-validating'' or
the like.
Why would you use the ones that say "non-conformant?"
The choice of "non-validating" is an engineering issue.
Sometimes wanted sometimes not.
I do not want to place any bets that any two parse identically.
-john
There are far fewer XML parsers than little wierd parsers
built into apps. The XML parsers are subjected to far
more rigorous testing and many more eyeballs scrutinize
them. The best of them are long established, well understood
and quite reliable. The fact that you or I might not know
which is which is a commenton our ignorance not the state
of the XML parser technology.
BobLQ
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