Xpath and DOM

Lauren Wood lauren at sqwest.bc.ca
Thu Dec 16 20:38:45 GMT 1999


On 16 Dec 99, at 11:50, David Orchard wrote:

> About 6 weeks ago, I asked Lauren Wood about DOM implementing XPath.  My
> version of her answer is "Nobody asked for it for Level 2 or Level 3, and
> Level 2 is too late now.  Nobody volunteered to write it for the DOM Spec".
> There's no technical reason why getElementByXPathExpr couldn't be added.
> 
> I asked some of the other IBM XML standards reps about this and my version
> of their answer is "XPath is a query language, and we've got a better query
> language coming.  Why support an inferior query language now when we'll have
> to support the better one soon.  Additionally, why should the DOM be the
> bucket for all API gorp?  Query should be built on top of the DOM so we can
> have layered parsers".
> 
> On one hand, I want an interoperable getElementByXPathExpr, but I understand
> the political and technical reasons why the DOM group isn't rushing to
> implement it.

I think the DOM group would be happy if some other interested 
group were to write an XPath API module that sits on top of the 
DOM. I also think the DOM WG would be happy to review such an 
API to make sure it does work with the DOM Level 2. And if 
something else is needed in the Core DOM to make it work (can't 
think of anything right now, but maybe there is something) we can 
add it to the Level 3 wishlist that's being discussed now. 


Lauren

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