SUMMARY: XML Validation Issues (was: several threads)

[Chris Lilley]

"Sall, Ken" wrote:
> 
> It seems useful to summarize some of the many issues generated directly or
> indirectly by my original post

Thanks, that was a useful condensing down of a number of threads.

>   - Should the XML Schemas Working Group address some of the holes in the
>     XML spec, especially in terms of conformance? 

I would hope so, but will need to check.

> Should it be the job of the Infoset WG? 

Perhaps you could list the pros and cons of having it be made a work
item of either of these WGs?

> SAX2?

That would be useful implementation experience; ideally, combined with
proposals originating from one of the two WGs above.

> Anyone want to add to this list? More importantly, anyone want to take a
> crack summarizing what they believe to be the majority and/or minority
> views?

There seems to be general agreement that following external entiries is
generally the desired behavior( majority case), but is not actually
required by the spec.

It seems the reason that nothing in the XML spec makes this required is
so that it is possible to have a tiny XML parser (a minority case). This
seems to lead to the conclusion that these two classes of application
should have separate names, and separate conformance criteria.

I don't sense consensus yet on whether client-side validation is always
desirable; it clearly is in some cases and clearly adds little in other
cases.

The assertion has been made that client-side validation is a performance
load, compared to just parsing the dtd looking for fixed attributes etc;
but no performance figures were made available. If someone has a parser
they could instrument and provide some actual measurements on real-world
data, that would help.

--
Chris

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