From: Bob Gustafson Date: 2001-11-14T03:41:14+09:00 Subject: [ruby-talk:25054] Re: XML support in the standard lib; what exactly? On Tue, 13 Nov 2001 12:00:35 -0500 Bob Hutchinson wrote: >On 01/11/13 11:21 AM, "Tobias Reif" wrote: > >> Bob Hutchison wrote: >> >> >>>> Other models could declare the sequence of attributes relevant, etc. >>>> >>> Not in XML, the order of attributes are specifically unordered -- there can >>> be no meaning to the order. >> >> >> Where is that specified in the XML spec? > >How would you specify their order? Anyways, your quote from the infoset >makes it pretty clear. I have worked on some SGML parsers in the past. We had a 'canonical form' which was used to compare documents. It sorted attributes alphabetically before the comparison operation. However, there was no restriction on the order of the attributes in the documents themselves. The 'canonical form' was only an internal representation of the documents to be compared/processed. ---------------------------------- Striking out on a slightly different direction, maybe some discussion of the 'requirements' of a ruby xml processor would be in order. Requirements - i.e., what do you want to do with the XML documents? 1) extract data from certain fields? 2) convert documents from one DTD scheme to another? (Abiword -> Docbook?) 3) quickly create data scraps to send between computers, both having different database schemas? 4) All of the above? 5) All of the above with the same tools or different tools. Which of these usages are most important to you folks? Is it ease of use, completeness with one tool? What? Would several tools (each adapted to a different use) be better than one mondo tool? BobG