Hi XML Commons Developers:

I only recently (and accidentally) became aware of the xml-apis-ext
artifact that I understand to be produced by Apache XML Commons. This
allowed us to replace a hand-rolled dependency on SVG bindings with what
feels like a more widely accepted version of the same thing. FWIW, here is
a link to our hand-rolled version and another for the SMIL dependency:
https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.axsl.org.w3c.dom.svg/svg-dom-java
https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.axsl.org.w3c.dom.smil/smil-boston-dom-java

We have also created similar hand-rolled bindings for MathML:
https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.axsl.org.w3c.dom.mathml/mathml-dom-java

I am not sure why the W3C does not publish artifacts for these
recommendations -- I am sure they have good reasons. I am grateful to XML
Commons for solving the SVG part of this, providing developers with a
central location to obtain those bindings. Is there any interest on your
part to do the same for MathML? I know that the JEuclid team would like
this as well, and I am sure there are other teams who would welcome an
Apache solution.

Two issues come to mind:

   1. Bloat: Our aXSL build is 27K to be added to 83K for xml-apis-ext
   1.3.04. I would have no objection, and indeed would find it preferable, for
   the MathML bindings to be distributed in a separate artifact.
   2. Versions: I think the current aXSL bindings are for MathML 2, and the
   latest version is MathML 3. So there is probably a need for two releases,
   one for each of those versions. This is perhaps another mark in favor of a
   separate artifact. I would have no objection to having a separate code base
   and artifacts for the two MathML versions.

The coding for the version 2 DOM is a fairly trivial task, as the W3C
provided the java code. I would be glad to submit a patch if there is
interest on your part. Or you can find the source code at the Maven URL
noted above. I do remember that the published bindings had some trivial
compile errors that we fixed and reported. You can find those in the source
repository:
https://sourceforge.net/p/axsl/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/mathml-dom/

With regard to MathML 3, I have not yet found published bindings for it.
That may be a bigger job, but I think quite solvable.

I actually don't know much about MathML, but am trying to integrate it into
our XSL-FO processing flow, the APIs being at www.axsl.org and the (very
ragged) implementation at www.foray.org.

Thanks very much.

Victor Mote

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