Hello -- On Wed, 14 Nov 2001, James Britt (rubydev) wrote: > > > > > > 1. Any XML parser should conform 100% with the XML rec: > > > well-formedness, encodings, Unicode, etc. > > > The OASIS test suite seems to be a good way to test this. > > > This is very important, so that the Ruby XML tools can play with > > > other XML tools (which is what XML mainly is about). > > > > It is also important that DTDs are handled correctly. DTDs are not just for > > validation, for example, they define default values, certain types (e.g. > > ID), and parsed entities (there is something about this in the XML 1.0 > > spec). These are all necessary even without validation. > > Validation is part of the XML 1.0 spec. A Ruby parser would need to > be able to provide validation at the request of the user. Actually non-validating parsers are provided for in the spec. (If they weren't, we'd all still be using SGML :-) They have to check for well-formedness, of course. See section 5.1, "Validating and Non-Validating Parsers", at http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xml-20001006#sec-conformance David -- David Alan Black home: dblack / candle.superlink.net work: blackdav / shu.edu Web: http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav