Return-Path: Delivered-To: apmail-jakarta-ant-dev-archive@apache.org Received: (qmail 83711 invoked from network); 16 Feb 2002 20:41:49 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO nagoya.betaversion.org) (192.18.49.131) by daedalus.apache.org with SMTP; 16 Feb 2002 20:41:49 -0000 Received: (qmail 29325 invoked by uid 97); 16 Feb 2002 20:41:51 -0000 Delivered-To: qmlist-jakarta-archive-ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org Received: (qmail 29307 invoked by uid 97); 16 Feb 2002 20:41:50 -0000 Mailing-List: contact ant-dev-help@jakarta.apache.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Help: List-Post: List-Id: "Ant Developers List" Reply-To: "Ant Developers List" Delivered-To: mailing list ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org Received: (qmail 29296 invoked from network); 16 Feb 2002 20:41:50 -0000 Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 15:39:55 -0500 (EST) From: "Glenn A. McAllister" X-Sender: To: Ant Developers List , Subject: Re: question and idea. In-Reply-To: <20020216200103.91129.qmail@web20808.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Spam-Rating: daedalus.apache.org 1.6.2 0/1000/N X-Spam-Rating: daedalus.apache.org 1.6.2 0/1000/N On Sat, 16 Feb 2002, Jonathan Locke wrote: Hey Jonathan. Comments inline... > > > The problem is, it isn't XML. Maybe I'm missing the point, but it seems > > to me that you've just created YAML; XML is supposed to make the mechanism > > of parsing these files easier by providing two well defined properties: > > well-formedness and the potential to validate (partially) the structure of > > the document. > > you bring up good points, to which i have a few responses that may or may > not sway you... > > - it's *not* YAML because it's not an ML. it's limited (intentionally) > to tree structures (where XML describes document markup). Ah, but XML is a mechanism to *define* (not describe) structured documents. The inherent structure is always tree like (at least, when defined with a DTD, I'm not familiar enough with XMLSchema and the like to comment) if it is a valid document. Even a well-formed document is tree like due to the requirement of matching begin and end tags. How is this not tree like? > - it would support schemas and dtd's (which would stay the same) that > describe tree structured documents. you would get all the well-formedness > and validation properties therein. Again, since all valid XML documents require a DTD or schema, how can you create non-tree like XML docuemnts? Please show me an example of such a document that is well formed and I'll capitulate on this point. :-) > > XML has been doing this for years. Admittedly its a tad verbose, but > > there are worse things. Why reinvent the wheel yet again? > > i guess my root feeling here is that tree data is not really a document. > it can certainly be *treated* as a document, but it's really a subclass > of documentness. it's treeness and so it seems reasonable to have a special > syntax that is better able to describe "tree documents". I'm just reiterating my point here that I'm pretty damn sure you can't create a well formed (much less valid) XML document that isn't a tree. > > > The rules you have defined are fine as far as they go, but I'm willing to > > bet there are lots of issues you haven't address. For example, how do you > > manage importing external documents? > > i don't think this *should* come up, as we're only replacing the SAX level > of DOM. it *should* in theory be 100% transparent to higher level things > like document parsers, validators, schemas etc. that is, if the XML people > have done there job optimally... But what you are proposing is to replace the parser, are you not? The entity replacement mechanism used to import (parts of) XML documents is a function of the parser, obeying rules defined by a DTD - internal or external. So either you have to have to reimplement the entity replacement mechanism defined by DTD or your schema language of choice, or you have to define a new one. Glenn McAllister SOMA Networks, Inc. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: For additional commands, e-mail: