<snip>
Dave Thomas wrote:
> What would it take to write a non-validating parser in Ruby? (Or is
> there one already?)

This is one of the first things I looked for when a friend turned me
onto Ruby a few weeks ago.  I was glad to see the expat support, but
raised the same question that both you and Aaron have now raised: what
would it take and why not?  The specs are out there and Ruby
definately has the toolsets to do the parsing.  I'd guess speed might
be the main concern....

> My drive to do this comes from a couple of frustrating incidents.
For
> example, I wanted to distribute the 'ri' files in XML format. That
> would have been really good: not only could 'ri' use them, but
people
> could write their own code to manipulate and present the data. But:
I
> couldn't rely on people having xmlparser installed, and I wanted to
> make ri as widely applicable as possible, so I was forced to convert
> my lovely XML files into a non-standard format. Everyone loses out.
> 
> I;d love to find a way to make this one fly.

I agree!  Considering issues like this, as well as the points made
earlier by Conrad about Ruby/Gtk+.

Thanks,

Guerry