From: Bob Hutchison <hutch@...>
Date: 2001-11-23T22:51:35+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:26225] Re: Conformance Test of XML Parsers in	Ruby(20011122)




On 01/11/22 10:29 PM, "David Alan Black" <dblack@candle.superlink.net>
wrote:
> 
> We may be talking about two different things:
> 
> 1. an XML parser that implements a subset of what the 1.0 spec asks
>    of it (and documents its own non-handling of other things);
> 2. an parser that does things that violate the spec.
> 
> In other words, sins of omission versus sins of commission.
> 
> It's the latter I'm principally concerned about (since that has the
> potential to completely isolate a given parser from the reality of
> XML).  But maybe we're really talking about #1?  In which case... It's
> understandable that an XML tool might be released and even used a lot
> before it handles everything (as long as it doesn't pretend to, as you
> say).  But in the medium-to-long term there's no reason not to aim for
> parsers that do handle the full spec.

Let's not forget that such well known parsers as Xerces have had problems
conforming (I don't know if Xerces does yet, last time I saw anything about
this it was failing a bunch of tests -- but it seems to me that the test
suite I saw reported had a lot more tests than the Oasis conformance test
suite)

XML parsers are allowed to evolve, but only towards conformance. It is *not*
OK to "improve" on the XML specification :-)

> 
> (Easy for me to say, as I haven't joined the ranks of those writing
> them :-)
> 
> 
> David