Re: a few short notes

[Paul Robinson <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Martin Duerst wrote:

> I have heard a lot of hype about XML, but the thing with the
> 'a dozen or so lines' is new. It's clear that there are bloated
> XML tools, as there are bloated tools for anything, but
> 'a dozen or so lines' is far off the mark, in particular
> if you include validation.


It's a text string. It's de-limited with tags. Tags are text surrounded 
by < and >. Sometimes they have /, " and = characters in them that 
change the way to treat either the tag, or the data inside the tag.

That's it. It's BECAUSE of the incredibly strict rules you have to 
follow that it is easy to write tools that handle XML.

If you can't write something like the above in say 12-20 lines, plus 
standard #include'ed files in C (stdio.h), perhaps you'd like to 
consider hiring me as a consultant? :-)

Now, if you then want to check your XML against an externally held XSD 
or DTD, then yes, you're right it's going to be more than a dozen lines. 
More like 50-100 or so.


--
Paul Robinson