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Received: (qmail 8546 invoked from network); 14 Nov 2002 06:07:24 -0000
Subject: Re: Transforming XML document
From: Simon Kitching <simon@ecnetwork.co.nz>
To: xerces-j-user@xml.apache.org
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Date: 14 Nov 2002 19:05:53 +1300
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Hi,

Unfortunately, you're out of luck. XML parsing just doesn't work that
way.

XML parsers are required to respect the contents of <i>text nodes</i>
within an xml document, but in every other place whitespace is not
significant according to the spec.

You can either treat the input file as a plain text file (eg use perl to
modify it), or you can treat it as XML in which case the XML parser will
guaruntee to preserve the *meaning* of your XML document, but not
necessarily its layout. 

For example, <x  y="a"> (two spaces) in xml means *exactly* the same
thing as <x y="a"> (one space). 

You do get to choose the "style" in which the output is generated
(indented or not, how much indenting, etc) but you cannot ask for "the
same as the input", because no existing XML parser bothers to keep that
information around.

Regards,

Simon

On Thu, 2002-11-14 at 18:36, Wai-Yip Tung wrote:
> I am trying to make simple transformation on a XML document. Let say just
> changing one attribute value. I want to keep everything else the same,
> including white spaces.
> 
> My first task is to parse and output a document identical to the input
> document. It seems the sample code sax.Writer is a good example.
> Unfortunately it altered the document in several ways
> 
> - white space in an element is changed, e.g.
>   <x  y = "a"> becomes <x y="a">
> 
> - The empty element becomes two tags, e.g.
>   <x/> becomes <x></x>
> 
> Anyone can give me some direction?
> 
> Wai yip
> 
> 
> 
> 
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