On 01/11/13 8:56 PM, "James Britt (rubydev)" <james / rubyxml.com> 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.

Parsers don't *have* to be validating (though I certainly will not argue
that they should be). If time to availability is an issue, and I really
think it is with a Ruby XML parser, then validating later is OK by me. As I
said several times before today, this is my biased opinion based on what I
need to do (this is a real requirement, at least, though it may only be one
user :-)

Cheers,
Bob