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Re: well-formedness error
On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 00:07:42 +0200, Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
It seems to me that if well-formedness is not a basic prerequisite,
the Atom format would not be an XML format.
Yes, I think this is rather obvious. But in the discussions I've read
about the matter, this isn't obvious for others. At least not when it
comes to applications implementing the specification, both on the producer
and consumer side. Especially on the consumer side, of course. Parsing
ill-formed XML silently seems like the way to go, and what most people
agree on. I don't.
Are you saying that there is no consensus on whether implementations
may reject ill-formed Atom documents?
Yes. I at least don't think it is. I'm not sure how we may reach consensus
on the matter either, but having a Pace on it would probably be a good
idea, no?
Or is this about whether implementations are required to reject
them as opposed to process the document up to the first well-
formedness error or attempt to process the entire document in
some implementation-defined way?
It's about parsing and displaying the whole mess without issuing as much
as a warning. This is supposed to be best for the user, I've heard. I
think it's much better to implement some sort of (mandatory) error
reporting mechanism in the feed (or in an HTTP header) that the tool
(automatically) can report parse errors to, but I'm pretty sure there's no
consensus on that either.
What's clear, though, is that we need to reach some sort of consensus on
these matters, as the current situation is just a mess. No one knows what
to say or do, and whether we conclude that Atom «MAY be well-formed XML»
or «MUST be well-formed XML» is less important than that we reach
consensus and conclude with something.
--
Asbjørn Ulsberg -=|=- asbjornu@xxxxxxxxxxx
«He's a loathsome offensive brute, yet I can't look away»