Is validity an option?

[Paul Prescod]

David Megginson wrote:
> 
> No, actually, if the parser says that it can handle the SGML
> declaration that it happens to have read from some random place on
> your system, then you know that if your document happens to match that
> SGML declaration you'll get out what you expect.  That model sucks
> too (even if it looked good on paper).
 
I haven't had this happen to me in practice. I agree that the SGML
declaration mechanism sucks but I've never had it silently fail on me.
Usually it vociferously fails! But that's neither here nor there: both
specs handle their optional features badly. SGML hides its option
declarations too far from the data and XML doesn't have option
declarations at all!

> SAX2, on the other hand, can take a stab classifying
> its parsers (as could the DOM).

That would be helpful.

-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself
 http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

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