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Daniel Veillard598bec32003-07-06 10:02:03 +00005 <title>The XML C parser and toolkit of Gnome</title>
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Daniel Veillard598bec32003-07-06 10:02:03 +000011<h1 align="center">The XML C parser and toolkit of Gnome</h1>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +000012
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +000013<h1>Note: this is the flat content of the <a href="index.html">web
14site</a></h1>
15
Daniel Veillardc9484202001-10-24 12:35:52 +000016<h1 style="text-align: center">libxml, a.k.a. gnome-xml</h1>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +000017
18<p></p>
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +000019
Daniel Veillard598bec32003-07-06 10:02:03 +000020<p>Libxml2 is the XML C parser and toolkit developed for the Gnome project
Daniel Veillard23a52c52003-08-18 10:01:18 +000021(but usable outside of the Gnome platform), it is free software available
Daniel Veillardeec1ae92003-09-09 13:11:01 +000022under the <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html">MIT
23License</a>. XML itself is a metalanguage to design markup languages, i.e.
24text language where semantic and structure are added to the content using
25extra "markup" information enclosed between angle brackets. HTML is the most
26well-known markup language. Though the library is written in C <a
27href="python.html">a variety of language bindings</a> make it available in
28other environments.</p>
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +000029
Daniel Veillard710823b2003-03-04 10:05:52 +000030<p>Libxml2 is known to be very portable, the library should build and work
31without serious troubles on a variety of systems (Linux, Unix, Windows,
32CygWin, MacOS, MacOS X, RISC Os, OS/2, VMS, QNX, MVS, ...)</p>
33
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +000034<p>Libxml2 implements a number of existing standards related to markup
35languages:</p>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +000036<ul>
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +000037 <li>the XML standard: <a
38 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml">http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml</a></li>
39 <li>Namespaces in XML: <a
40 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/">http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/</a></li>
41 <li>XML Base: <a
42 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlbase/">http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlbase/</a></li>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +000043 <li><a href="http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/rfc/rfc2396.txt">RFC 2396</a> :
44 Uniform Resource Identifiers <a
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +000045 href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt">http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt</a></li>
46 <li>XML Path Language (XPath) 1.0: <a
47 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath">http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath</a></li>
48 <li>HTML4 parser: <a
49 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/">http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/</a></li>
Daniel Veillard23a52c52003-08-18 10:01:18 +000050 <li>XML Pointer Language (XPointer) Version 1.0: <a
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +000051 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr">http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr</a></li>
52 <li>XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.0: <a
53 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude/">http://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude/</a></li>
Daniel Veillard23a52c52003-08-18 10:01:18 +000054 <li>ISO-8859-x encodings, as well as <a
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +000055 href="http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/rfc/rfc2044.txt">rfc2044</a> [UTF-8]
56 and <a href="http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/rfc/rfc2781.txt">rfc2781</a>
Daniel Veillard23a52c52003-08-18 10:01:18 +000057 [UTF-16] Unicode encodings, and more if using iconv support</li>
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +000058 <li>part of SGML Open Technical Resolution TR9401:1997</li>
59 <li>XML Catalogs Working Draft 06 August 2001: <a
60 href="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/entity/spec-2001-08-06.html">http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/entity/spec-2001-08-06.html</a></li>
Daniel Veillard5c396542002-03-15 07:57:50 +000061 <li>Canonical XML Version 1.0: <a
62 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n">http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n</a>
Daniel Veillard2d347fa2002-03-17 10:34:11 +000063 and the Exclusive XML Canonicalization CR draft <a
64 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-exc-c14n">http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-exc-c14n</a></li>
Daniel Veillard758c5312003-12-15 11:51:25 +000065 <li>Relax NG, ISO/IEC 19757-2:2003, <a
Daniel Veillard17bed982003-02-24 20:11:43 +000066 href="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/relax-ng/spec-20011203.html">http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/relax-ng/spec-20011203.html</a></li>
Daniel Veillardf83a2c72003-04-08 13:48:40 +000067 <li>W3C XML Schemas Part 2: Datatypes <a
68 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xmlschema-2-20010502/">REC 02 May
Daniel Veillard7ecced52003-12-18 14:22:09 +000069 2001</a></li>
Daniel Veillard96984452000-08-31 13:50:12 +000070</ul>
71
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +000072<p>In most cases libxml2 tries to implement the specifications in a
73relatively strictly compliant way. As of release 2.4.16, libxml2 passes all
741800+ tests from the <a
Daniel Veillarda5393562002-02-20 11:40:49 +000075href="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xml-conformance/">OASIS XML Tests
76Suite</a>.</p>
Daniel Veillard5b16f582002-02-20 11:38:46 +000077
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +000078<p>To some extent libxml2 provides support for the following additional
79specifications but doesn't claim to implement them completely:</p>
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +000080<ul>
81 <li>Document Object Model (DOM) <a
82 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Core/">http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Core/</a>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +000083 it doesn't implement the API itself, gdome2 does this on top of
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +000084 libxml2</li>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +000085 <li><a href="http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/rfc/rfc959.txt">RFC 959</a> :
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +000086 libxml2 implements a basic FTP client code</li>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +000087 <li><a href="http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/rfc/rfc1945.txt">RFC 1945</a> :
88 HTTP/1.0, again a basic HTTP client code</li>
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +000089 <li>SAX: a minimal SAX implementation compatible with early expat
90 versions</li>
91 <li>DocBook SGML v4: libxml2 includes a hackish parser to transition to
92 XML</li>
93</ul>
94
Daniel Veillardf83a2c72003-04-08 13:48:40 +000095<p>A partial implementation of <a
96href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xmlschema-1-20010502/">XML Schemas Part
971: Structure</a> is being worked on but it would be far too early to make any
98conformance statement about it at the moment.</p>
Daniel Veillarde6d8e202002-05-02 06:11:10 +000099
Daniel Veillard96984452000-08-31 13:50:12 +0000100<p>Separate documents:</p>
101<ul>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +0000102 <li><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/">the libxslt page</a> providing an
Daniel Veillard2d347fa2002-03-17 10:34:11 +0000103 implementation of XSLT 1.0 and common extensions like EXSLT for
104 libxml2</li>
Daniel Veillardc6271d22001-10-27 07:50:58 +0000105 <li><a href="http://www.cs.unibo.it/~casarini/gdome2/">the gdome2 page</a>
Daniel Veillard2d347fa2002-03-17 10:34:11 +0000106 : a standard DOM2 implementation for libxml2</li>
107 <li><a href="http://www.aleksey.com/xmlsec/">the XMLSec page</a>: an
108 implementation of <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xmldsig-core/">W3C XML
109 Digital Signature</a> for libxml2</li>
Daniel Veillarde6d8e202002-05-02 06:11:10 +0000110 <li>also check the related links section below for more related and active
111 projects.</li>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000112</ul>
113
Daniel Veillard806cada2003-03-19 21:58:59 +0000114<p>Results of the <a
115href="http://xmlbench.sourceforge.net/results/benchmark/index.html">xmlbench
116benchmark</a> on sourceforge 19 March 2003 (smaller is better):</p>
Daniel Veillardd8da01c2003-03-24 15:58:23 +0000117
118<p align="center"><img src="benchmark.gif"
119alt="benchmark results for Expat Xerces libxml2 Oracle and Sun toolkits"></p>
Daniel Veillard806cada2003-03-19 21:58:59 +0000120
Daniel Veillarde1662542002-08-28 11:50:59 +0000121<p>Logo designed by <a href="mailto:liyanage@access.ch">Marc Liyanage</a>.</p>
122
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000123<h2><a name="Introducti">Introduction</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000124
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000125<p>This document describes libxml, the <a
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +0000126href="http://www.w3.org/XML/">XML</a> C parser and toolkit developed for the
127<a href="http://www.gnome.org/">Gnome</a> project. <a
Daniel Veillardec78c0f2000-08-25 10:25:23 +0000128href="http://www.w3.org/XML/">XML is a standard</a> for building tag-based
129structured documents/data.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000130
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000131<p>Here are some key points about libxml:</p>
132<ul>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000133 <li>Libxml2 exports Push (progressive) and Pull (blocking) type parser
Daniel Veillard2d347fa2002-03-17 10:34:11 +0000134 interfaces for both XML and HTML.</li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000135 <li>Libxml2 can do DTD validation at parse time, using a parsed document
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000136 instance, or with an arbitrary DTD.</li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000137 <li>Libxml2 includes complete <a
Daniel Veillard8c2ecaf2001-07-10 17:53:07 +0000138 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath">XPath</a>, <a
139 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr">XPointer</a> and <a
140 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude">XInclude</a> implementations.</li>
Daniel Veillardec78c0f2000-08-25 10:25:23 +0000141 <li>It is written in plain C, making as few assumptions as possible, and
Daniel Veillard189446d2000-10-13 10:23:06 +0000142 sticking closely to ANSI C/POSIX for easy embedding. Works on
Daniel Veillardab8500d2000-10-15 21:06:19 +0000143 Linux/Unix/Windows, ported to a number of other platforms.</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000144 <li>Basic support for HTTP and FTP client allowing applications to fetch
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000145 remote resources.</li>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000146 <li>The design is modular, most of the extensions can be compiled out.</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000147 <li>The internal document representation is as close as possible to the <a
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000148 href="http://www.w3.org/DOM/">DOM</a> interfaces.</li>
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +0000149 <li>Libxml2 also has a <a
150 href="http://www.megginson.com/SAX/index.html">SAX like interface</a>;
151 the interface is designed to be compatible with <a
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000152 href="http://www.jclark.com/xml/expat.html">Expat</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillardc575b992002-02-08 13:28:40 +0000153 <li>This library is released under the <a
154 href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html">MIT
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000155 License</a>. See the Copyright file in the distribution for the precise
Daniel Veillardc575b992002-02-08 13:28:40 +0000156 wording.</li>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000157</ul>
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +0000158
Daniel Veillarde0c1d722001-03-21 10:28:36 +0000159<p>Warning: unless you are forced to because your application links with a
Daniel Veillard2d347fa2002-03-17 10:34:11 +0000160Gnome-1.X library requiring it, <strong><span
Daniel Veillarde0c1d722001-03-21 10:28:36 +0000161style="background-color: #FF0000">Do Not Use libxml1</span></strong>, use
162libxml2</p>
163
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000164<h2><a name="FAQ">FAQ</a></h2>
165
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000166<p>Table of Contents:</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000167<ul>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000168 <li><a href="FAQ.html#License">License(s)</a></li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000169 <li><a href="FAQ.html#Installati">Installation</a></li>
170 <li><a href="FAQ.html#Compilatio">Compilation</a></li>
171 <li><a href="FAQ.html#Developer">Developer corner</a></li>
172</ul>
173
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000174<h3><a name="License">License</a>(s)</h3>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000175<ol>
176 <li><em>Licensing Terms for libxml</em>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000177 <p>libxml2 is released under the <a
Daniel Veillardc575b992002-02-08 13:28:40 +0000178 href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html">MIT
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000179 License</a>; see the file Copyright in the distribution for the precise
Daniel Veillardc575b992002-02-08 13:28:40 +0000180 wording</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000181 </li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000182 <li><em>Can I embed libxml2 in a proprietary application ?</em>
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000183 <p>Yes. The MIT License allows you to keep proprietary the changes you
184 made to libxml, but it would be graceful to send-back bug fixes and
185 improvements as patches for possible incorporation in the main
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000186 development tree.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000187 </li>
188</ol>
189
190<h3><a name="Installati">Installation</a></h3>
191<ol>
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +0000192 <li><strong><span style="background-color: #FF0000">Do Not Use
193 libxml1</span></strong>, use libxml2</li>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +0000194 <li><em>Where can I get libxml</em> ?
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000195 <p>The original distribution comes from <a
196 href="ftp://rpmfind.net/pub/libxml/">rpmfind.net</a> or <a
Daniel Veillard024f1992003-12-10 16:43:49 +0000197 href="ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/libxml2/2.6/">gnome.org</a></p>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000198 <p>Most Linux and BSD distributions include libxml, this is probably the
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000199 safer way for end-users to use libxml.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000200 <p>David Doolin provides precompiled Windows versions at <a
201 href="http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~doolin/code/libxmlwin32/ ">http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~doolin/code/libxmlwin32/</a></p>
202 </li>
203 <li><em>I see libxml and libxml2 releases, which one should I install ?</em>
204 <ul>
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000205 <li>If you are not constrained by backward compatibility issues with
206 existing applications, install libxml2 only</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000207 <li>If you are not doing development, you can safely install both.
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000208 Usually the packages <a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000209 href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/libxml.html">libxml</a> and <a
210 href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/libxml2.html">libxml2</a> are
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000211 compatible (this is not the case for development packages).</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000212 <li>If you are a developer and your system provides separate packaging
213 for shared libraries and the development components, it is possible
214 to install libxml and libxml2, and also <a
215 href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/libxml-devel.html">libxml-devel</a>
216 and <a
217 href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/libxml2-devel.html">libxml2-devel</a>
218 too for libxml2 &gt;= 2.3.0</li>
219 <li>If you are developing a new application, please develop against
220 libxml2(-devel)</li>
221 </ul>
222 </li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000223 <li><em>I can't install the libxml package, it conflicts with libxml0</em>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000224 <p>You probably have an old libxml0 package used to provide the shared
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000225 library for libxml.so.0, you can probably safely remove it. The libxml
226 packages provided on <a
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000227 href="ftp://rpmfind.net/pub/libxml/">rpmfind.net</a> provide
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000228 libxml.so.0</p>
229 </li>
230 <li><em>I can't install the libxml(2) RPM package due to failed
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000231 dependencies</em>
232 <p>The most generic solution is to re-fetch the latest src.rpm , and
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000233 rebuild it locally with</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000234 <p><code>rpm --rebuild libxml(2)-xxx.src.rpm</code>.</p>
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000235 <p>If everything goes well it will generate two binary rpm packages (one
236 providing the shared libs and xmllint, and the other one, the -devel
237 package, providing includes, static libraries and scripts needed to build
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000238 applications with libxml(2)) that you can install locally.</p>
239 </li>
240</ol>
241
242<h3><a name="Compilatio">Compilation</a></h3>
243<ol>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000244 <li><em>What is the process to compile libxml2 ?</em>
245 <p>As most UNIX libraries libxml2 follows the "standard":</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000246 <p><code>gunzip -c xxx.tar.gz | tar xvf -</code></p>
247 <p><code>cd libxml-xxxx</code></p>
248 <p><code>./configure --help</code></p>
249 <p>to see the options, then the compilation/installation proper</p>
250 <p><code>./configure [possible options]</code></p>
251 <p><code>make</code></p>
252 <p><code>make install</code></p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000253 <p>At that point you may have to rerun ldconfig or a similar utility to
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000254 update your list of installed shared libs.</p>
255 </li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000256 <li><em>What other libraries are needed to compile/install libxml2 ?</em>
257 <p>Libxml2 does not require any other library, the normal C ANSI API
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000258 should be sufficient (please report any violation to this rule you may
259 find).</p>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000260 <p>However if found at configuration time libxml2 will detect and use the
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000261 following libs:</p>
262 <ul>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +0000263 <li><a href="http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/zlib/">libz</a> : a
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000264 highly portable and available widely compression library.</li>
265 <li>iconv: a powerful character encoding conversion library. It is
266 included by default in recent glibc libraries, so it doesn't need to
267 be installed specifically on Linux. It now seems a <a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000268 href="http://www.opennc.org/onlinepubs/7908799/xsh/iconv.html">part
269 of the official UNIX</a> specification. Here is one <a
Daniel Veillarddad3f682002-11-17 16:47:27 +0000270 href="http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/">implementation of the
271 library</a> which source can be found <a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000272 href="ftp://ftp.ilog.fr/pub/Users/haible/gnu/">here</a>.</li>
273 </ul>
274 </li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000275 <li><em>Make check fails on some platforms</em>
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000276 <p>Sometimes the regression tests' results don't completely match the
277 value produced by the parser, and the makefile uses diff to print the
278 delta. On some platforms the diff return breaks the compilation process;
279 if the diff is small this is probably not a serious problem.</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000280 <p>Sometimes (especially on Solaris) make checks fail due to limitations
Daniel Veillarde46182c2002-02-12 14:29:11 +0000281 in make. Try using GNU-make instead.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000282 </li>
283 <li><em>I use the CVS version and there is no configure script</em>
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000284 <p>The configure script (and other Makefiles) are generated. Use the
285 autogen.sh script to regenerate the configure script and Makefiles,
286 like:</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000287 <p><code>./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --disable-shared</code></p>
288 </li>
289 <li><em>I have troubles when running make tests with gcc-3.0</em>
290 <p>It seems the initial release of gcc-3.0 has a problem with the
291 optimizer which miscompiles the URI module. Please use another
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000292 compiler.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000293 </li>
294</ol>
295
296<h3><a name="Developer">Developer</a> corner</h3>
297<ol>
Daniel Veillard93d95252003-04-29 20:25:40 +0000298 <li><em>Troubles compiling or linking programs using libxml2</em>
299 <p>Usually the problem comes from the fact that the compiler doesn't get
300 the right compilation or linking flags. There is a small shell script
301 <code>xml2-config</code> which is installed as part of libxml2 usual
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +0000302 install process which provides those flags. Use</p>
Daniel Veillard93d95252003-04-29 20:25:40 +0000303 <p><code>xml2-config --cflags</code></p>
304 <p>to get the compilation flags and</p>
305 <p><code>xml2-config --libs</code></p>
306 <p>to get the linker flags. Usually this is done directly from the
307 Makefile as:</p>
308 <p><code>CFLAGS=`xml2-config --cflags`</code></p>
309 <p><code>LIBS=`xml2-config --libs`</code></p>
310 </li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000311 <li><em>xmlDocDump() generates output on one line.</em>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000312 <p>Libxml2 will not <strong>invent</strong> spaces in the content of a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000313 document since <strong>all spaces in the content of a document are
314 significant</strong>. If you build a tree from the API and want
315 indentation:</p>
316 <ol>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000317 <li>the correct way is to generate those yourself too.</li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000318 <li>the dangerous way is to ask libxml2 to add those blanks to your
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000319 content <strong>modifying the content of your document in the
320 process</strong>. The result may not be what you expect. There is
321 <strong>NO</strong> way to guarantee that such a modification won't
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000322 affect other parts of the content of your document. See <a
Daniel Veillard5373ea12003-07-24 13:09:13 +0000323 href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-parser.html#xmlKeepBlanksDefault">xmlKeepBlanksDefault
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000324 ()</a> and <a
Daniel Veillard5373ea12003-07-24 13:09:13 +0000325 href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#xmlSaveFormatFile">xmlSaveFormatFile
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000326 ()</a></li>
327 </ol>
328 </li>
329 <li>Extra nodes in the document:
330 <p><em>For a XML file as below:</em></p>
331 <pre>&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
332&lt;PLAN xmlns="http://www.argus.ca/autotest/1.0/"&gt;
333&lt;NODE CommFlag="0"/&gt;
334&lt;NODE CommFlag="1"/&gt;
335&lt;/PLAN&gt;</pre>
336 <p><em>after parsing it with the function
337 pxmlDoc=xmlParseFile(...);</em></p>
338 <p><em>I want to the get the content of the first node (node with the
339 CommFlag="0")</em></p>
340 <p><em>so I did it as following;</em></p>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000341 <pre>xmlNodePtr pnode;
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000342pnode=pxmlDoc-&gt;children-&gt;children;</pre>
343 <p><em>but it does not work. If I change it to</em></p>
344 <pre>pnode=pxmlDoc-&gt;children-&gt;children-&gt;next;</pre>
345 <p><em>then it works. Can someone explain it to me.</em></p>
346 <p></p>
347 <p>In XML all characters in the content of the document are significant
348 <strong>including blanks and formatting line breaks</strong>.</p>
349 <p>The extra nodes you are wondering about are just that, text nodes with
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000350 the formatting spaces which are part of the document but that people tend
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000351 to forget. There is a function <a
352 href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-parser.html">xmlKeepBlanksDefault
353 ()</a> to remove those at parse time, but that's an heuristic, and its
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000354 use should be limited to cases where you are certain there is no
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000355 mixed-content in the document.</p>
356 </li>
357 <li><em>I get compilation errors of existing code like when accessing
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000358 <strong>root</strong> or <strong>child fields</strong> of nodes.</em>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000359 <p>You are compiling code developed for libxml version 1 and using a
360 libxml2 development environment. Either switch back to libxml v1 devel or
361 even better fix the code to compile with libxml2 (or both) by <a
362 href="upgrade.html">following the instructions</a>.</p>
363 </li>
364 <li><em>I get compilation errors about non existing
365 <strong>xmlRootNode</strong> or <strong>xmlChildrenNode</strong>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000366 fields.</em>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000367 <p>The source code you are using has been <a
368 href="upgrade.html">upgraded</a> to be able to compile with both libxml
369 and libxml2, but you need to install a more recent version:
370 libxml(-devel) &gt;= 1.8.8 or libxml2(-devel) &gt;= 2.1.0</p>
371 </li>
372 <li><em>XPath implementation looks seriously broken</em>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000373 <p>XPath implementation prior to 2.3.0 was really incomplete. Upgrade to
374 a recent version, there are no known bugs in the current version.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000375 </li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000376 <li><em>The example provided in the web page does not compile.</em>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000377 <p>It's hard to maintain the documentation in sync with the code
378 &lt;grin/&gt; ...</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000379 <p>Check the previous points 1/ and 2/ raised before, and please send
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000380 patches.</p>
381 </li>
Daniel Veillard8d7b5c72003-11-15 18:24:36 +0000382 <li><em>Where can I get more examples and information than provided on the
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000383 web page?</em>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000384 <p>Ideally a libxml2 book would be nice. I have no such plan ... But you
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000385 can:</p>
386 <ul>
387 <li>check more deeply the <a href="html/libxml-lib.html">existing
388 generated doc</a></li>
Daniel Veillardc480c4e2003-12-10 13:24:38 +0000389 <li>have a look at <a href="examples/index.html">the set of
390 examples</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000391 <li>look for examples of use for libxml2 function using the Gnome code.
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000392 For example the following will query the full Gnome CVS base for the
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000393 use of the <strong>xmlAddChild()</strong> function:
394 <p><a
395 href="http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/search?string=xmlAddChild">http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/search?string=xmlAddChild</a></p>
396 <p>This may be slow, a large hardware donation to the gnome project
397 could cure this :-)</p>
398 </li>
399 <li><a
Daniel Veillardc480c4e2003-12-10 13:24:38 +0000400 href="http://cvs.gnome.org/bonsai/rview.cgi?cvsroot=/cvs/gnome&amp;dir=gnome-xml">Browse
401 the libxml2 source</a> , I try to write code as clean and documented
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000402 as possible, so looking at it may be helpful. In particular the code
403 of xmllint.c and of the various testXXX.c test programs should
404 provide good examples of how to do things with the library.</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000405 </ul>
406 </li>
407 <li>What about C++ ?
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000408 <p>libxml2 is written in pure C in order to allow easy reuse on a number
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000409 of platforms, including embedded systems. I don't intend to convert to
410 C++.</p>
Daniel Veillard91e69c52003-08-04 01:43:07 +0000411 <p>There is however a C++ wrapper which may fulfill your needs:</p>
Daniel Veillard9b6fd302002-05-13 12:06:47 +0000412 <ul>
413 <li>by Ari Johnson &lt;ari@btigate.com&gt;:
414 <p>Website: <a
Daniel Veillard91e69c52003-08-04 01:43:07 +0000415 href="http://libxmlplusplus.sourceforge.net/">http://libxmlplusplus.sourceforge.net/</a></p>
Daniel Veillard9b6fd302002-05-13 12:06:47 +0000416 <p>Download: <a
Daniel Veillard91e69c52003-08-04 01:43:07 +0000417 href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=12999">http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=12999</a></p>
Daniel Veillard9b6fd302002-05-13 12:06:47 +0000418 </li>
Daniel Veillard83ee40d2003-08-09 22:24:09 +0000419 <!-- Website is currently unavailable as of 2003-08-02
Daniel Veillard9b6fd302002-05-13 12:06:47 +0000420 <li>by Peter Jones &lt;pjones@pmade.org&gt;
Daniel Veillard83ee40d2003-08-09 22:24:09 +0000421 <p>Website: <a
422 href="http://pmade.org/pjones/software/xmlwrapp/">http://pmade.org/pjones/software/xmlwrapp/</a></p>
Daniel Veillard9b6fd302002-05-13 12:06:47 +0000423 </li>
Daniel Veillard83ee40d2003-08-09 22:24:09 +0000424 -->
Daniel Veillard9b6fd302002-05-13 12:06:47 +0000425 </ul>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000426 </li>
427 <li>How to validate a document a posteriori ?
428 <p>It is possible to validate documents which had not been validated at
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000429 initial parsing time or documents which have been built from scratch
430 using the API. Use the <a
Daniel Veillard5373ea12003-07-24 13:09:13 +0000431 href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-valid.html#xmlValidateDtd">xmlValidateDtd()</a>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000432 function. It is also possible to simply add a DTD to an existing
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000433 document:</p>
434 <pre>xmlDocPtr doc; /* your existing document */
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000435xmlDtdPtr dtd = xmlParseDTD(NULL, filename_of_dtd); /* parse the DTD */
436
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000437 dtd-&gt;name = xmlStrDup((xmlChar*)"root_name"); /* use the given root */
438
439 doc-&gt;intSubset = dtd;
440 if (doc-&gt;children == NULL) xmlAddChild((xmlNodePtr)doc, (xmlNodePtr)dtd);
441 else xmlAddPrevSibling(doc-&gt;children, (xmlNodePtr)dtd);
442 </pre>
443 </li>
Daniel Veillarddad3f682002-11-17 16:47:27 +0000444 <li>So what is this funky "xmlChar" used all the time?
445 <p>It is a null terminated sequence of utf-8 characters. And only utf-8!
446 You need to convert strings encoded in different ways to utf-8 before
447 passing them to the API. This can be accomplished with the iconv library
448 for instance.</p>
John Fleck61f6fb62002-10-31 15:23:29 +0000449 </li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000450 <li>etc ...</li>
451</ol>
452
453<p></p>
454
Daniel Veillard66f68e72003-08-18 16:39:51 +0000455<h2><a name="Documentat">Developer Menu</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000456
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000457<p>There are several on-line resources related to using libxml:</p>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000458<ol>
MST 2003 John Fleck2b7142a2003-11-22 03:55:27 +0000459 <li>Use the <a href="search.php">search engine</a> to look up
460 information.</li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000461 <li>Check the <a href="FAQ.html">FAQ.</a></li>
Daniel Veillardc19fccc2000-07-03 11:52:01 +0000462 <li>Check the <a href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-lib.html">extensive
MST 2003 John Fleck2b7142a2003-11-22 03:55:27 +0000463 documentation</a> automatically extracted from code comments.</li>
Daniel Veillard8d869642000-07-14 12:12:59 +0000464 <li>Look at the documentation about <a href="encoding.html">libxml
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000465 internationalization support</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillardbc66f852002-01-14 09:49:20 +0000466 <li>This page provides a global overview and <a href="example.html">some
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000467 examples</a> on how to use libxml.</li>
Daniel Veillardc480c4e2003-12-10 13:24:38 +0000468 <li><a href="examples/index.html">Code examples</a></li>
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +0000469 <li>John Fleck's libxml2 tutorial: <a href="tutorial/index.html">html</a>
470 or <a href="tutorial/xmltutorial.pdf">pdf</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000471 <li>If you need to parse large files, check the <a
472 href="xmlreader.html">xmlReader</a> API tutorial</li>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +0000473 <li><a href="mailto:james@daa.com.au">James Henstridge</a> wrote <a
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000474 href="http://www.daa.com.au/~james/gnome/xml-sax/xml-sax.html">some nice
475 documentation</a> explaining how to use the libxml SAX interface.</li>
Daniel Veillardc480c4e2003-12-10 13:24:38 +0000476 <li>George Lebl wrote <a
MST 2003 John Fleck2b7142a2003-11-22 03:55:27 +0000477 href="http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-gnome3/">an article
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000478 for IBM developerWorks</a> about using libxml.</li>
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +0000479 <li>Check <a href="http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/gnome-xml/TODO">the TODO
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000480 file</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000481 <li>Read the <a href="upgrade.html">1.x to 2.x upgrade path</a>
482 description. If you are starting a new project using libxml you should
483 really use the 2.x version.</li>
Daniel Veillard845cce42002-01-09 11:51:37 +0000484 <li>And don't forget to look at the <a
485 href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/">mailing-list archive</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000486</ol>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000487
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +0000488<h2><a name="Reporting">Reporting bugs and getting help</a></h2>
Daniel Veillard4c3a2031999-11-19 17:46:26 +0000489
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +0000490<p>Well, bugs or missing features are always possible, and I will make a
491point of fixing them in a timely fashion. The best way to report a bug is to
Daniel Veillardccf996f2003-08-14 10:48:38 +0000492use the <a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=libxml2">Gnome
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000493bug tracking database</a> (make sure to use the "libxml2" module name). I
494look at reports there regularly and it's good to have a reminder when a bug
495is still open. Be sure to specify that the bug is for the package libxml2.</p>
Daniel Veillard4c3a2031999-11-19 17:46:26 +0000496
Daniel Veillard4ac494b2003-09-18 15:08:00 +0000497<p>For small problems you can try to get help on IRC, the #xml channel on
498irc.gnome.org (port 6667) usually have a few person subscribed which may help
499(but there is no garantee and if a real issue is raised it should go on the
500mailing-list for archival).</p>
Daniel Veillard9582d6c2003-09-16 11:40:04 +0000501
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000502<p>There is also a mailing-list <a
Daniel Veillard3197f162001-04-04 00:40:08 +0000503href="mailto:xml@gnome.org">xml@gnome.org</a> for libxml, with an <a
504href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/">on-line archive</a> (<a
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +0000505href="http://xmlsoft.org/messages">old</a>). To subscribe to this list,
506please visit the <a
507href="http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/xml">associated Web</a> page and
508follow the instructions. <strong>Do not send code, I won't debug it</strong>
509(but patches are really appreciated!).</p>
Daniel Veillard234547b2001-07-05 09:46:10 +0000510
Daniel Veillard008186f2001-09-13 14:24:44 +0000511<p>Check the following <strong><span style="color: #FF0000">before
512posting</span></strong>:</p>
Daniel Veillard234547b2001-07-05 09:46:10 +0000513<ul>
Daniel Veillard321be0c2002-10-08 21:26:42 +0000514 <li>Read the <a href="FAQ.html">FAQ</a> and <a href="search.php">use the
Daniel Veillarda37aab82003-06-09 09:10:36 +0000515 search engine</a> to get information related to your problem.</li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000516 <li>Make sure you are <a href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/">using a recent
517 version</a>, and that the problem still shows up in a recent version.</li>
518 <li>Check the <a href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/">list
519 archives</a> to see if the problem was reported already. In this case
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000520 there is probably a fix available, similarly check the <a
Daniel Veillardccf996f2003-08-14 10:48:38 +0000521 href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=libxml2">registered
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000522 open bugs</a>.</li>
523 <li>Make sure you can reproduce the bug with xmllint or one of the test
524 programs found in source in the distribution.</li>
Daniel Veillard234547b2001-07-05 09:46:10 +0000525 <li>Please send the command showing the error as well as the input (as an
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000526 attachment)</li>
Daniel Veillard234547b2001-07-05 09:46:10 +0000527</ul>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000528
Daniel Veillarda37aab82003-06-09 09:10:36 +0000529<p>Then send the bug with associated information to reproduce it to the <a
Daniel Veillard33a67802001-03-07 09:44:02 +0000530href="mailto:xml@gnome.org">xml@gnome.org</a> list; if it's really libxml
Daniel Veillard98d071d2003-01-10 09:22:44 +0000531related I will approve it. Please do not send mail to me directly, it makes
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000532things really hard to track and in some cases I am not the best person to
Daniel Veillard98d071d2003-01-10 09:22:44 +0000533answer a given question, ask on the list.</p>
534
535<p>To <span style="color: #E50000">be really clear about support</span>:</p>
536<ul>
Daniel Veillarda37aab82003-06-09 09:10:36 +0000537 <li>Support or help <span style="color: #E50000">requests MUST be sent to
Daniel Veillard98d071d2003-01-10 09:22:44 +0000538 the list or on bugzilla</span> in case of problems, so that the Question
539 and Answers can be shared publicly. Failing to do so carries the implicit
540 message "I want free support but I don't want to share the benefits with
Daniel Veillard831e8fd2003-01-25 11:45:34 +0000541 others" and is not welcome. I will automatically Carbon-Copy the
542 xml@gnome.org mailing list for any technical reply made about libxml2 or
543 libxslt.</li>
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +0000544 <li>There is <span style="color: #E50000">no garantee of support</span>, if
545 your question remains unanswered after a week, repost it, making sure you
546 gave all the detail needed and the information requested.</li>
Daniel Veillarda37aab82003-06-09 09:10:36 +0000547 <li>Failing to provide information as requested or double checking first
Daniel Veillard98d071d2003-01-10 09:22:44 +0000548 for prior feedback also carries the implicit message "the time of the
549 library maintainers is less valuable than my time" and might not be
550 welcome.</li>
551</ul>
Daniel Veillard4c3a2031999-11-19 17:46:26 +0000552
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000553<p>Of course, bugs reported with a suggested patch for fixing them will
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000554probably be processed faster than those without.</p>
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +0000555
556<p>If you're looking for help, a quick look at <a
Daniel Veillardf7ed3362001-08-17 12:01:21 +0000557href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/">the list archive</a> may actually
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +0000558provide the answer. I usually send source samples when answering libxml2
559usage questions. The <a
560href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/book1.html">auto-generated documentation</a> is
561not as polished as I would like (i need to learn more about DocBook), but
562it's a good starting point.</p>
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +0000563
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +0000564<h2><a name="help">How to help</a></h2>
565
566<p>You can help the project in various ways, the best thing to do first is to
567subscribe to the mailing-list as explained before, check the <a
Daniel Veillardf7ed3362001-08-17 12:01:21 +0000568href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/">archives </a>and the <a
Daniel Veillardccf996f2003-08-14 10:48:38 +0000569href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=libxml2">Gnome bug
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000570database</a>:</p>
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +0000571<ol>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000572 <li>Provide patches when you find problems.</li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000573 <li>Provide the diffs when you port libxml2 to a new platform. They may not
Daniel Veillardab8500d2000-10-15 21:06:19 +0000574 be integrated in all cases but help pinpointing portability problems
575 and</li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000576 <li>Provide documentation fixes (either as patches to the code comments or
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +0000577 as HTML diffs).</li>
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000578 <li>Provide new documentations pieces (translations, examples, etc
579 ...).</li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000580 <li>Check the TODO file and try to close one of the items.</li>
581 <li>Take one of the points raised in the archive or the bug database and
Daniel Veillarde7ead2d2001-08-22 23:44:09 +0000582 provide a fix. <a href="mailto:daniel@veillard.com">Get in touch with me
583 </a>before to avoid synchronization problems and check that the suggested
584 fix will fit in nicely :-)</li>
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +0000585</ol>
586
Daniel Veillard10a2c651999-12-12 13:03:50 +0000587<h2><a name="Downloads">Downloads</a></h2>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000588
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000589<p>The latest versions of libxml2 can be found on <a
Daniel Veillard20c8cf22001-06-26 22:47:36 +0000590href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/">xmlsoft.org</a> (<a
591href="ftp://speakeasy.rpmfind.net/pub/libxml/">Seattle</a>, <a
592href="ftp://fr.rpmfind.net/pub/libxml/">France</a>) or on the <a
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000593href="ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/MIRRORS.html">Gnome FTP server</a> either
Daniel Veillard024f1992003-12-10 16:43:49 +0000594as a <a href="ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/libxml2/2.6/">source
MDT 2002 John Fleck30c70542002-09-24 14:24:54 +0000595archive</a><!-- commenting this out because they seem to have disappeared or <a
Daniel Veillarda41123c2001-04-22 19:31:20 +0000596href="ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/stable/redhat/i386/libxml/">RPM
Daniel Veillarde16b5742002-09-26 17:50:03 +0000597packages</a> -->
Daniel Veillard321be0c2002-10-08 21:26:42 +0000598 , Antonin Sprinzl also provide <a href="ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/libxml/">a
Daniel Veillarde16b5742002-09-26 17:50:03 +0000599mirror in Austria</a>. (NOTE that you need both the <a
Daniel Veillardc19fccc2000-07-03 11:52:01 +0000600href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/libxml2.html">libxml(2)</a> and <a
601href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/libxml2-devel.html">libxml(2)-devel</a>
Daniel Veillardb46a5732003-04-08 13:35:48 +0000602packages installed to compile applications using libxml.)</p>
603
604<p>Binary ports:</p>
605<ul>
606 <li>Red Hat RPMs for i386 are available directly on <a
607 href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/">xmlsoft.org</a>, the source RPM will compile on
608 any architecture supported by Red Hat.</li>
Daniel Veillardf83a2c72003-04-08 13:48:40 +0000609 <li><p><a href="mailto:igor@zlatkovic.com">Igor Zlatkovic</a></p>
Daniel Veillardce192eb2003-04-16 15:58:05 +0000610 is now the maintainer of the Windows port, <a
Daniel Veillardb46a5732003-04-08 13:35:48 +0000611 href="http://www.zlatkovic.com/projects/libxml/index.html">he provides
612 binaries</a>.</li>
613 <li><a href="mailto:Gary.Pennington@sun.com">Gary Pennington</a> provides
614 <a href="http://garypennington.net/libxml2/">Solaris binaries</a>.</li>
615 <li><a href="mailto:Steve.Ball@zveno.com">Steve Ball</a> provides <a
616 href="http://www.zveno.com/open_source/libxml2xslt.html">Mac Os X
617 binaries</a>.</li>
618 <li>The HP-UX porting center provides <a
619 href="http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/hpux/Gnome/">HP-UX binaries</a></li>
620</ul>
621
622<p>If you know other supported binary ports, please <a
623href="http://veillard.com/">contact me</a>.</p>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000624
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +0000625<p><a name="Snapshot">Snapshot:</a></p>
626<ul>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000627 <li>Code from the W3C cvs base gnome-xml <a
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000628 href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/cvs-snapshot.tar.gz">cvs-snapshot.tar.gz</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +0000629 <li>Docs, content of the web site, the list archive included <a
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000630 href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/libxml-docs.tar.gz">libxml-docs.tar.gz</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +0000631</ul>
632
Daniel Veillardc6271d22001-10-27 07:50:58 +0000633<p><a name="Contribs">Contributions:</a></p>
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +0000634
635<p>I do accept external contributions, especially if compiling on another
Daniel Veillardc6271d22001-10-27 07:50:58 +0000636platform, get in touch with me to upload the package, wrappers for various
Daniel Veillard51095312001-10-28 18:51:57 +0000637languages have been provided, and can be found in the <a
638href="contribs.html">contrib section</a></p>
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +0000639
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000640<p>Libxml2 is also available from CVS:</p>
Daniel Veillard10a2c651999-12-12 13:03:50 +0000641<ul>
Daniel Veillard10a2c651999-12-12 13:03:50 +0000642 <li><p>The <a
643 href="http://cvs.gnome.org/bonsai/rview.cgi?cvsroot=/cvs/gnome&amp;dir=gnome-xml">Gnome
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000644 CVS base</a>. Check the <a
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +0000645 href="http://developer.gnome.org/tools/cvs.html">Gnome CVS Tools</a>
646 page; the CVS module is <b>gnome-xml</b>.</p>
Daniel Veillard10a2c651999-12-12 13:03:50 +0000647 </li>
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +0000648 <li>The <strong>libxslt</strong> module is also present there</li>
Daniel Veillard10a2c651999-12-12 13:03:50 +0000649</ul>
650
651<h2><a name="News">News</a></h2>
652
Daniel Veillard944b5ff1999-12-15 19:08:24 +0000653<h3>CVS only : check the <a
654href="http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/gnome-xml/ChangeLog">Changelog</a> file
Daniel Veillard189446d2000-10-13 10:23:06 +0000655for a really accurate description</h3>
Daniel Veillardab8500d2000-10-15 21:06:19 +0000656
Daniel Veillarde6d8e202002-05-02 06:11:10 +0000657<p>Items not finished and worked on, get in touch with the list if you want
658to test those</p>
Daniel Veillardab8500d2000-10-15 21:06:19 +0000659<ul>
Daniel Veillard72fef162003-02-05 14:31:19 +0000660 <li>More testing on RelaxNG</li>
Daniel Veillardcf27f7c2002-04-30 07:12:39 +0000661 <li>Finishing up <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-1/">XML
Daniel Veillard72fef162003-02-05 14:31:19 +0000662 Schemas</a></li>
663</ul>
664
Daniel Veillarde6e59cd2003-12-24 11:56:44 +0000665<h3>2.6.4: Dec 24 2003</h3>
666<ul>
667 <li>Windows build fixes (Igor Zlatkovic)</li>
668 <li>Some serious XInclude problems reported by Oleg Paraschenko and </li>
669 <li>Unix and Makefile packaging fixes (me, William Brack, </li>
670 <li>Documentation improvements (John Fleck, William Brack), example fix
671 (Lucas Brasilino)</li>
672 <li>bugfixes: xmlTextReaderExpand() with xmlReaderWalker, XPath handling of
673 NULL strings (William Brack) , API building reader or parser from
674 filedescriptor should not close it, changed XPath sorting to be stable
675 again (William Brack), xmlGetNodePath() generating '(null)' (William
676 Brack), DTD validation and namespace bug (William Brack), XML Schemas
677 double inclusion behaviour</li>
678</ul>
679
Daniel Veillardc480c4e2003-12-10 13:24:38 +0000680<h3>2.6.3: Dec 10 2003</h3>
681<ul>
682 <li>documentation updates and cleanup (DV, William Brack, John Fleck)</li>
683 <li>added a repository of examples, examples from Aleksey Sanin, Dodji
Daniel Veillarde6e59cd2003-12-24 11:56:44 +0000684 Seketeli, Alfred Mickautsch</li>
Daniel Veillardc480c4e2003-12-10 13:24:38 +0000685 <li>Windows updates: Mark Vakoc, Igor Zlatkovic, Eric Zurcher, Mingw
686 (Kenneth Haley)</li>
687 <li>Unicode range checking (William Brack)</li>
688 <li>code cleanup (William Brack)</li>
689 <li>Python bindings: doc (John Fleck), bug fixes</li>
690 <li>UTF-16 cleanup and BOM issues (William Brack)</li>
691 <li>bug fixes: ID and xmlReader validation, XPath (William Brack),
692 xmlWriter (Alfred Mickautsch), hash.h inclusion problem, HTML parser
693 (James Bursa), attribute defaulting and validation, some serialization
694 cleanups, XML_GET_LINE macro, memory debug when using threads (William
695 Brack), serialization of attributes and entities content, xmlWriter
696 (Daniel Schulman)</li>
697 <li>XInclude bugfix, new APIs and update to the last version including the
698 namespace change.</li>
699 <li>XML Schemas improvements: include (Robert Stepanek), import and
700 namespace handling, fixed the regression tests troubles, added examples
Daniel Veillarde6e59cd2003-12-24 11:56:44 +0000701 based on Eric van der Vlist book, regexp fixes</li>
Daniel Veillardc480c4e2003-12-10 13:24:38 +0000702 <li>preliminary pattern support for streaming (needed for schemas
703 constraints), added xmlTextReaderPreservePattern() to collect subdocument
704 when streaming.</li>
705 <li>various fixes in the structured error handling</li>
706</ul>
707
Daniel Veillard6d373a22003-11-04 10:26:43 +0000708<h3>2.6.2: Nov 4 2003</h3>
709<ul>
710 <li>XPath context unregistration fixes</li>
711 <li>text node coalescing fixes (Mark Lilback)</li>
712 <li>API to screate a W3C Schemas from an existing document (Steve Ball)</li>
713 <li>BeOS patches (Marcin 'Shard' Konicki)</li>
714 <li>xmlStrVPrintf function added (Aleksey Sanin)</li>
715 <li>compilation fixes (Mark Vakoc)</li>
716 <li>stdin parsing fix (William Brack)</li>
717 <li>a posteriori DTD validation fixes</li>
Daniel Veillardc480c4e2003-12-10 13:24:38 +0000718 <li>xmlReader bug fixes: Walker fixes, python bindings</li>
Daniel Veillard6d373a22003-11-04 10:26:43 +0000719 <li>fixed xmlStopParser() to really stop the parser and errors</li>
720 <li>always generate line numbers when using the new xmlReadxxx
721 functions</li>
722 <li>added XInclude support to the xmlReader interface</li>
723 <li>implemented XML_PARSE_NONET parser option</li>
724 <li>DocBook XSLT processing bug fixed</li>
725 <li>HTML serialization for &lt;p&gt; elements (William Brack and me)</li>
726 <li>XPointer failure in XInclude are now handled as resource errors</li>
727 <li>fixed xmllint --html to use the HTML serializer on output (added
728 --xmlout to implement the previous behaviour of saving it using the XML
729 serializer)</li>
730</ul>
731
Daniel Veillarde4e3f5d2003-10-28 23:06:32 +0000732<h3>2.6.1: Oct 28 2003</h3>
733<ul>
734 <li>Mostly bugfixes after the big 2.6.0 changes</li>
735 <li>Unix compilation patches: libxml.m4 (Patrick Welche), warnings cleanup
736 (William Brack)</li>
737 <li>Windows compilation patches (Joachim Bauch, Stephane Bidoul, Igor
738 Zlatkovic)</li>
739 <li>xmlWriter bugfix (Alfred Mickautsch)</li>
740 <li>chvalid.[ch]: couple of fixes from Stephane Bidoul</li>
Daniel Veillard6d373a22003-11-04 10:26:43 +0000741 <li>context reset: error state reset, push parser reset (Graham
742 Bennett)</li>
Daniel Veillarde4e3f5d2003-10-28 23:06:32 +0000743 <li>context reuse: generate errors if file is not readable</li>
744 <li>defaulted attributes for element coming from internal entities
745 (Stephane Bidoul)</li>
746 <li>Python: tab and spaces mix (William Brack)</li>
747 <li>Error handler could crash in DTD validation in 2.6.0</li>
748 <li>xmlReader: do not use the document or element _private field</li>
749 <li>testSAX.c: avoid a problem with some PIs (Massimo Morara)</li>
750 <li>general bug fixes: mandatory encoding in text decl, serializing
751 Document Fragment nodes, xmlSearchNs 2.6.0 problem (Kasimier Buchcik),
752 XPath errors not reported, slow HTML parsing of large documents.</li>
753</ul>
754
Daniel Veillard3e35f8e2003-10-21 00:05:38 +0000755<h3>2.6.0: Oct 20 2003</h3>
756<ul>
757 <li>Major revision release: should be API and ABI compatible but got a lot
758 of change</li>
759 <li>Increased the library modularity, far more options can be stripped out,
760 a --with-minimum configuration will weight around 160KBytes</li>
761 <li>Use per parser and per document dictionnary, allocate names and small
762 text nodes from the dictionnary</li>
763 <li>Switch to a SAX2 like parser rewrote most of the XML parser core,
764 provides namespace resolution and defaulted attributes, minimize memory
765 allocations and copies, namespace checking and specific error handling,
766 immutable buffers, make predefined entities static structures, etc...</li>
767 <li>rewrote all the error handling in the library, all errors can be
768 intercepted at a structured level, with precise information
769 available.</li>
770 <li>New simpler and more generic XML and HTML parser APIs, allowing to
771 easilly modify the parsing options and reuse parser context for multiple
772 consecutive documents.</li>
773 <li>Similar new APIs for the xmlReader, for options and reuse, provided new
774 functions to access content as const strings, use them for Python
775 bindings</li>
776 <li>a lot of other smaller API improvements: xmlStrPrintf (Aleksey Sanin),
777 Walker i.e. reader on a document tree based on Alfred Mickautsch code,
778 make room in nodes for line numbers, reference counting and future PSVI
779 extensions, generation of character ranges to be checked with faster
780 algorithm (William), xmlParserMaxDepth (Crutcher Dunnavant), buffer
781 access</li>
782 <li>New xmlWriter API provided by Alfred Mickautsch</li>
783 <li>Schemas: base64 support by Anthony Carrico</li>
784 <li>Parser&lt;-&gt;HTTP integration fix, proper processing of the Mime-Type
785 and charset informations if available.</li>
786 <li>Relax-NG: bug fixes including the one reported by Martijn Faassen and
787 zeroOrMore, better error reporting.</li>
788 <li>Python bindings (Stéphane Bidoul), never use stdout for errors
789 output</li>
790 <li>Portability: all the headers have macros for export and calling
791 convention definitions (Igor Zlatkovic), VMS update (Craig A. Berry),
792 Windows: threads (Jesse Pelton), Borland compiler (Eric Zurcher, Igor),
793 Mingw (Igor), typos (Mark Vakoc), beta version (Stephane Bidoul),
794 warning cleanups on AIX and MIPS compilers (William Brack), BeOS (Marcin
795 'Shard' Konicki)</li>
796 <li>Documentation fixes and README (William Brack), search fix (William),
797 tutorial updates (John Fleck), namespace docs (Stefan Kost)</li>
798 <li>Bug fixes: xmlCleanupParser (Dave Beckett), threading uninitialized
799 mutexes, HTML doctype lowercase, SAX/IO (William), compression detection
800 and restore (William), attribute declaration in DTDs (William), namespace
801 on attribute in HTML output (William), input filename (Rob Richards),
802 namespace DTD validation, xmlReplaceNode (Chris Ryland), I/O callbacks
803 (Markus Keim), CDATA serialization (Shaun McCance), xmlReader (Peter
804 Derr), high codepoint charref like &amp;#x10FFFF;, buffer access in push
805 mode (Justin Fletcher), TLS threads on Windows (Jesse Pelton), XPath bug
806 (William), xmlCleanupParser (Marc Liyanage), CDATA output (William), HTTP
807 error handling.</li>
808 <li>xmllint options: --dtdvalidfpi for Tobias Reif, --sax1 for compat
809 testing, --nodict for building without tree dictionnary, --nocdata to
810 replace CDATA by text, --nsclean to remove surperfluous namespace
811 declarations</li>
812 <li>added xml2-config --libtool-libs option from Kevin P. Fleming</li>
813 <li>a lot of profiling and tuning of the code, speedup patch for
814 xmlSearchNs() by Luca Padovani. The xmlReader should do far less
815 allocation and it speed should get closer to SAX. Chris Anderson worked
816 on speeding and cleaning up repetitive checking code.</li>
817 <li>cleanup of "make tests"</li>
818 <li>libxml-2.0-uninstalled.pc from Malcolm Tredinnick</li>
819 <li>deactivated the broken docBook SGML parser code and plugged the XML
820 parser instead.</li>
821</ul>
822
Daniel Veillardeec1ae92003-09-09 13:11:01 +0000823<h3>2.5.11: Sep 9 2003</h3>
824
825<p>A bugfix only release:</p>
826<ul>
827 <li>risk of crash in Relax-NG</li>
828 <li>risk of crash when using multithreaded programs</li>
829</ul>
830
Daniel Veillardcfba2fe2003-08-15 00:33:43 +0000831<h3>2.5.10: Aug 15 2003</h3>
832
833<p>A bugfixes only release</p>
834<ul>
835 <li>Windows Makefiles (William Brack)</li>
836 <li>UTF-16 support fixes (Mark Itzcovitz)</li>
837 <li>Makefile and portability (William Brack) automake, Linux alpha, Mingw
Daniel Veillardeec1ae92003-09-09 13:11:01 +0000838 on Windows (Mikhail Grushinskiy)</li>
Daniel Veillardcfba2fe2003-08-15 00:33:43 +0000839 <li>HTML parser (Oliver Stoeneberg)</li>
840 <li>XInclude performance problem reported by Kevin Ruscoe</li>
841 <li>XML parser performance problem reported by Grant Goodale</li>
842 <li>xmlSAXParseDTD() bug fix from Malcolm Tredinnick</li>
Daniel Veillardeec1ae92003-09-09 13:11:01 +0000843 <li>and a couple other cleanup</li>
Daniel Veillardcfba2fe2003-08-15 00:33:43 +0000844</ul>
845
Daniel Veillard83ee40d2003-08-09 22:24:09 +0000846<h3>2.5.9: Aug 9 2003</h3>
847<ul>
848 <li>bugfixes: IPv6 portability, xmlHasNsProp (Markus Keim), Windows build
849 (Wiliam Brake, Jesse Pelton, Igor), Schemas (Peter Sobisch), threading
850 (Rob Richards), hexBinary type (), UTF-16 BOM (Dodji Seketeli),
851 xmlReader, Relax-NG schemas compilation, namespace handling, EXSLT (Sean
852 Griffin), HTML parsing problem (William Brack), DTD validation for mixed
853 content + namespaces, HTML serialization, library initialization,
854 progressive HTML parser</li>
855 <li>better interfaces for Relax-NG error handling (Joachim Bauch, )</li>
856 <li>adding xmlXIncludeProcessTree() for XInclud'ing in a subtree</li>
857 <li>doc fixes and improvements (John Fleck)</li>
858 <li>configure flag for -with-fexceptions when embedding in C++</li>
859 <li>couple of new UTF-8 helper functions (William Brack)</li>
860 <li>general encoding cleanup + ISO-8859-x without iconv (Peter Jacobi)</li>
861 <li>xmlTextReader cleanup + enum for node types (Bjorn Reese)</li>
862 <li>general compilation/warning cleanup Solaris/HP-UX/... (William
863 Brack)</li>
864</ul>
865
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +0000866<h3>2.5.8: Jul 6 2003</h3>
867<ul>
868 <li>bugfixes: XPath, XInclude, file/URI mapping, UTF-16 save (Mark
869 Itzcovitz), UTF-8 checking, URI saving, error printing (William Brack),
870 PI related memleak, compilation without schemas or without xpath (Joerg
871 Schmitz-Linneweber/Garry Pennington), xmlUnlinkNode problem with DTDs,
872 rpm problem on , i86_64, removed a few compilation problems from 2.5.7,
873 xmlIOParseDTD, and xmlSAXParseDTD (Malcolm Tredinnick)</li>
874 <li>portability: DJGPP (MsDos) , OpenVMS (Craig A. Berry)</li>
875 <li>William Brack fixed multithreading lock problems</li>
876 <li>IPv6 patch for FTP and HTTP accesses (Archana Shah/Wipro)</li>
877 <li>Windows fixes (Igor Zlatkovic, Eric Zurcher), threading (Stéphane
878 Bidoul)</li>
879 <li>A few W3C Schemas Structure improvements</li>
880 <li>W3C Schemas Datatype improvements (Charlie Bozeman)</li>
881 <li>Python bindings for thread globals (Stéphane Bidoul), and method/class
Daniel Veillard83ee40d2003-08-09 22:24:09 +0000882 generator</li>
883 <li>added --nonet option to xmllint</li>
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +0000884 <li>documentation improvements (John Fleck)</li>
885</ul>
886
Daniel Veillard92fc02c2003-04-24 23:12:35 +0000887<h3>2.5.7: Apr 25 2003</h3>
888<ul>
889 <li>Relax-NG: Compiling to regexp and streaming validation on top of the
890 xmlReader interface, added to xmllint --stream</li>
891 <li>xmlReader: Expand(), Next() and DOM access glue, bug fixes</li>
892 <li>Support for large files: RGN validated a 4.5GB instance</li>
893 <li>Thread support is now configured in by default</li>
894 <li>Fixes: update of the Trio code (Bjorn), WXS Date and Duration fixes
895 (Charles Bozeman), DTD and namespaces (Brent Hendricks), HTML push parser
896 and zero bytes handling, some missing Windows file path conversions,
897 behaviour of the parser and validator in the presence of "out of memory"
Daniel Veillard93d95252003-04-29 20:25:40 +0000898 error conditions</li>
Daniel Veillard92fc02c2003-04-24 23:12:35 +0000899 <li>extended the API to be able to plug a garbage collecting memory
900 allocator, added xmlMallocAtomic() and modified the allocations
901 accordingly.</li>
902 <li>Performances: removed excessive malloc() calls, speedup of the push and
903 xmlReader interfaces, removed excessive thread locking</li>
904 <li>Documentation: man page (John Fleck), xmlReader documentation</li>
905 <li>Python: adding binding for xmlCatalogAddLocal (Brent M Hendricks)</li>
906</ul>
907
Daniel Veillardc2d4a932003-04-01 11:13:05 +0000908<h3>2.5.6: Apr 1 2003</h3>
909<ul>
910 <li>Fixed W3C XML Schemas datatype, should be compliant now except for
911 binHex and base64 which are not supported yet.</li>
912 <li>bug fixes: non-ASCII IDs, HTML output, XInclude on large docs and
913 XInclude entities handling, encoding detection on external subsets, XML
914 Schemas bugs and memory leaks, HTML parser (James Bursa)</li>
915 <li>portability: python/trio (Albert Chin), Sun compiler warnings</li>
916 <li>documentation: added --relaxng option to xmllint man page (John)</li>
917 <li>improved error reporting: xml:space, start/end tag mismatches, Relax NG
918 errors</li>
919</ul>
920
921<h3>2.5.5: Mar 24 2003</h3>
Daniel Veillardd8da01c2003-03-24 15:58:23 +0000922<ul>
923 <li>Lot of fixes on the Relax NG implementation. More testing including
924 DocBook and TEI examples.</li>
925 <li>Increased the support for W3C XML Schemas datatype</li>
926 <li>Several bug fixes in the URI handling layer</li>
927 <li>Bug fixes: HTML parser, xmlReader, DTD validation, XPath, encoding
928 conversion, line counting in the parser.</li>
929 <li>Added support for $XMLLINT_INDENT environment variable, FTP delete</li>
930 <li>Fixed the RPM spec file name</li>
931</ul>
932
Daniel Veillard17bed982003-02-24 20:11:43 +0000933<h3>2.5.4: Feb 20 2003</h3>
934<ul>
935 <li>Conformance testing and lot of fixes on Relax NG and XInclude
936 implementation</li>
937 <li>Implementation of XPointer element() scheme</li>
938 <li>Bug fixes: XML parser, XInclude entities merge, validity checking on
939 namespaces,
940 <p>2 serialization bugs, node info generation problems, a DTD regexp
941 generation problem.</p>
942 </li>
943 <li>Portability: windows updates and path canonicalization (Igor)</li>
944 <li>A few typo fixes (Kjartan Maraas)</li>
945 <li>Python bindings generator fixes (Stephane Bidoul)</li>
946</ul>
947
Daniel Veillard1d788d22003-02-10 16:21:58 +0000948<h3>2.5.3: Feb 10 2003</h3>
949<ul>
950 <li>RelaxNG and XML Schemas datatypes improvements, and added a first
951 version of RelaxNG Python bindings</li>
952 <li>Fixes: XLink (Sean Chittenden), XInclude (Sean Chittenden), API fix for
953 serializing namespace nodes, encoding conversion bug, XHTML1
954 serialization</li>
955 <li>Portability fixes: Windows (Igor), AMD 64bits RPM spec file</li>
956</ul>
957
Daniel Veillard72fef162003-02-05 14:31:19 +0000958<h3>2.5.2: Feb 5 2003</h3>
959<ul>
960 <li>First implementation of RelaxNG, added --relaxng flag to xmllint</li>
961 <li>Schemas support now compiled in by default.</li>
962 <li>Bug fixes: DTD validation, namespace checking, XInclude and entities,
963 delegateURI in XML Catalogs, HTML parser, XML reader (Stéphane Bidoul),
964 XPath parser and evaluation, UTF8ToUTF8 serialization, XML reader memory
965 consumption, HTML parser, HTML serialization in the presence of
966 namespaces</li>
967 <li>added an HTML API to check elements and attributes.</li>
968 <li>Documentation improvement, PDF for the tutorial (John Fleck), doc
969 patches (Stefan Kost)</li>
970 <li>Portability fixes: NetBSD (Julio Merino), Windows (Igor Zlatkovic)</li>
971 <li>Added python bindings for XPointer, contextual error reporting
972 (Stéphane Bidoul)</li>
973 <li>URI/file escaping problems (Stefano Zacchiroli)</li>
Daniel Veillardcf27f7c2002-04-30 07:12:39 +0000974</ul>
975
Daniel Veillarde2830f12003-01-08 17:47:49 +0000976<h3>2.5.1: Jan 8 2003</h3>
977<ul>
978 <li>Fixes a memory leak and configuration/compilation problems in 2.5.0</li>
979 <li>documentation updates (John)</li>
980 <li>a couple of XmlTextReader fixes</li>
981</ul>
982
Daniel Veillard7b4b2f92003-01-06 13:11:20 +0000983<h3>2.5.0: Jan 6 2003</h3>
984<ul>
985 <li>New <a href="xmlreader.html">XmltextReader interface</a> based on C#
986 API (with help of Stéphane Bidoul)</li>
987 <li>Windows: more exports, including the new API (Igor)</li>
988 <li>XInclude fallback fix</li>
989 <li>Python: bindings for the new API, packaging (Stéphane Bidoul),
990 drv_libxml2.py Python xml.sax driver (Stéphane Bidoul), fixes, speedup
991 and iterators for Python-2.2 (Hannu Krosing)</li>
992 <li>Tutorial fixes (john Fleck and Niraj Tolia) xmllint man update
993 (John)</li>
994 <li>Fix an XML parser bug raised by Vyacheslav Pindyura</li>
995 <li>Fix for VMS serialization (Nigel Hall) and config (Craig A. Berry)</li>
996 <li>Entities handling fixes</li>
997 <li>new API to optionally track node creation and deletion (Lukas
998 Schroeder)</li>
999 <li>Added documentation for the XmltextReader interface and some <a
1000 href="guidelines.html">XML guidelines</a></li>
1001</ul>
1002
Daniel Veillardc1eed322002-12-12 11:01:32 +00001003<h3>2.4.30: Dec 12 2002</h3>
1004<ul>
1005 <li>2.4.29 broke the python bindings, rereleasing</li>
1006 <li>Improvement/fixes of the XML API generator, and couple of minor code
1007 fixes.</li>
1008</ul>
1009
Daniel Veillard9b4bb4d2002-12-11 19:28:47 +00001010<h3>2.4.29: Dec 11 2002</h3>
1011<ul>
1012 <li>Windows fixes (Igor): Windows CE port, pthread linking, python bindings
1013 (Stéphane Bidoul), Mingw (Magnus Henoch), and export list updates</li>
1014 <li>Fix for prev in python bindings (ERDI Gergo)</li>
1015 <li>Fix for entities handling (Marcus Clarke)</li>
1016 <li>Refactored the XML and HTML dumps to a single code path, fixed XHTML1
1017 dump</li>
1018 <li>Fix for URI parsing when handling URNs with fragment identifiers</li>
1019 <li>Fix for HTTP URL escaping problem</li>
1020 <li>added an TextXmlReader (C#) like API (work in progress)</li>
1021 <li>Rewrote the API in XML generation script, includes a C parser and saves
1022 more informations needed for C# bindings</li>
1023</ul>
1024
Daniel Veillardf9c4cad2002-11-22 15:57:07 +00001025<h3>2.4.28: Nov 22 2002</h3>
1026<ul>
1027 <li>a couple of python binding fixes</li>
1028 <li>2 bug fixes in the XML push parser</li>
1029 <li>potential memory leak removed (Martin Stoilov)</li>
1030 <li>fix to the configure script for Unix (Dimitri Papadopoulos)</li>
1031 <li>added encoding support for XInclude parse="text"</li>
1032 <li>autodetection of XHTML1 and specific serialization rules added</li>
Daniel Veillard9b4bb4d2002-12-11 19:28:47 +00001033 <li>nasty threading bug fixed (William Brack)</li>
Daniel Veillardf9c4cad2002-11-22 15:57:07 +00001034</ul>
1035
Daniel Veillarddad3f682002-11-17 16:47:27 +00001036<h3>2.4.27: Nov 17 2002</h3>
1037<ul>
1038 <li>fixes for the Python bindings</li>
1039 <li>a number of bug fixes: SGML catalogs, xmlParseBalancedChunkMemory(),
1040 HTML parser, Schemas (Charles Bozeman), document fragment support
1041 (Christian Glahn), xmlReconciliateNs (Brian Stafford), XPointer,
1042 xmlFreeNode(), xmlSAXParseMemory (Peter Jones), xmlGetNodePath (Petr
1043 Pajas), entities processing</li>
1044 <li>added grep to xmllint --shell</li>
1045 <li>VMS update patch from Craig A. Berry</li>
1046 <li>cleanup of the Windows build with support for more compilers (Igor),
1047 better thread support on Windows</li>
1048 <li>cleanup of Unix Makefiles and spec file</li>
1049 <li>Improvements to the documentation (John Fleck)</li>
1050</ul>
1051
Daniel Veillard48267432002-10-18 11:21:38 +00001052<h3>2.4.26: Oct 18 2002</h3>
1053<ul>
1054 <li>Patches for Windows CE port, improvements on Windows paths handling</li>
1055 <li>Fixes to the validation code (DTD and Schemas), xmlNodeGetPath() ,
1056 HTML serialization, Namespace compliance, and a number of small
1057 problems</li>
1058</ul>
1059
Daniel Veillarde16b5742002-09-26 17:50:03 +00001060<h3>2.4.25: Sep 26 2002</h3>
1061<ul>
1062 <li>A number of bug fixes: XPath, validation, Python bindings, DOM and
1063 tree, xmlI/O, Html</li>
1064 <li>Serious rewrite of XInclude</li>
1065 <li>Made XML Schemas regexp part of the default build and APIs, small fix
1066 and improvement of the regexp core</li>
1067 <li>Changed the validation code to reuse XML Schemas regexp APIs</li>
1068 <li>Better handling of Windows file paths, improvement of Makefiles (Igor,
1069 Daniel Gehriger, Mark Vakoc)</li>
1070 <li>Improved the python I/O bindings, the tests, added resolver and regexp
Daniel Veillard321be0c2002-10-08 21:26:42 +00001071 APIs</li>
Daniel Veillarde16b5742002-09-26 17:50:03 +00001072 <li>New logos from Marc Liyanage</li>
1073 <li>Tutorial improvements: John Fleck, Christopher Harris</li>
1074 <li>Makefile: Fixes for AMD x86_64 (Mandrake), DESTDIR (Christophe
1075 Merlet)</li>
1076 <li>removal of all stderr/perror use for error reporting</li>
1077 <li>Better error reporting: XPath and DTD validation</li>
1078 <li>update of the trio portability layer (Bjorn Reese)</li>
1079</ul>
1080
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +00001081<p><strong>2.4.24: Aug 22 2002</strong></p>
1082<ul>
1083 <li>XPath fixes (William), xf:escape-uri() (Wesley Terpstra)</li>
1084 <li>Python binding fixes: makefiles (William), generator, rpm build, x86-64
1085 (fcrozat)</li>
1086 <li>HTML &lt;style&gt; and boolean attributes serializer fixes</li>
1087 <li>C14N improvements by Aleksey</li>
Daniel Veillarde1662542002-08-28 11:50:59 +00001088 <li>doc cleanups: Rick Jones</li>
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +00001089 <li>Windows compiler makefile updates: Igor and Elizabeth Barham</li>
1090 <li>XInclude: implementation of fallback and xml:base fixup added</li>
1091</ul>
1092
Daniel Veillard782afda2002-07-08 15:12:49 +00001093<h3>2.4.23: July 6 2002</h3>
1094<ul>
1095 <li>performances patches: Peter Jacobi</li>
1096 <li>c14n fixes, testsuite and performances: Aleksey Sanin</li>
1097 <li>added xmlDocFormatDump: Chema Celorio</li>
1098 <li>new tutorial: John Fleck</li>
1099 <li>new hash functions and performances: Sander Vesik, portability fix from
1100 Peter Jacobi</li>
1101 <li>a number of bug fixes: XPath (William Brack, Richard Jinks), XML and
1102 HTML parsers, ID lookup function</li>
1103 <li>removal of all remaining sprintf: Aleksey Sanin</li>
1104</ul>
1105
Daniel Veillardc0801af2002-05-28 16:28:42 +00001106<h3>2.4.22: May 27 2002</h3>
1107<ul>
1108 <li>a number of bug fixes: configure scripts, base handling, parser, memory
1109 usage, HTML parser, XPath, documentation (Christian Cornelssen),
Daniel Veillard21473672002-06-17 07:29:22 +00001110 indentation, URI parsing</li>
Daniel Veillardc0801af2002-05-28 16:28:42 +00001111 <li>Optimizations for XMLSec, fixing and making public some of the network
1112 protocol handlers (Aleksey)</li>
1113 <li>performance patch from Gary Pennington</li>
1114 <li>Charles Bozeman provided date and time support for XML Schemas
1115 datatypes</li>
1116</ul>
1117
Daniel Veillardcf27f7c2002-04-30 07:12:39 +00001118<h3>2.4.21: Apr 29 2002</h3>
1119
1120<p>This release is both a bug fix release and also contains the early XML
1121Schemas <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-1/">structures</a> and <a
1122href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/">datatypes</a> code, beware, all
1123interfaces are likely to change, there is huge holes, it is clearly a work in
1124progress and don't even think of putting this code in a production system,
Daniel Veillarde6d8e202002-05-02 06:11:10 +00001125it's actually not compiled in by default. The real fixes are:</p>
Daniel Veillardcf27f7c2002-04-30 07:12:39 +00001126<ul>
1127 <li>a couple of bugs or limitations introduced in 2.4.20</li>
1128 <li>patches for Borland C++ and MSC by Igor</li>
1129 <li>some fixes on XPath strings and conformance patches by Richard
1130 Jinks</li>
1131 <li>patch from Aleksey for the ExcC14N specification</li>
1132 <li>OSF/1 bug fix by Bjorn</li>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00001133</ul>
1134
Daniel Veillarda7084cd2002-04-15 17:12:47 +00001135<h3>2.4.20: Apr 15 2002</h3>
1136<ul>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001137 <li>bug fixes: file descriptor leak, XPath, HTML output, DTD validation</li>
Daniel Veillarda7084cd2002-04-15 17:12:47 +00001138 <li>XPath conformance testing by Richard Jinks</li>
1139 <li>Portability fixes: Solaris, MPE/iX, Windows, OSF/1, python bindings,
1140 libxml.m4</li>
1141</ul>
1142
Daniel Veillard19274092002-03-25 16:48:03 +00001143<h3>2.4.19: Mar 25 2002</h3>
1144<ul>
1145 <li>bug fixes: half a dozen XPath bugs, Validation, ISO-Latin to UTF8
1146 encoder</li>
1147 <li>portability fixes in the HTTP code</li>
Daniel Veillardb2fb8ed2002-04-01 09:33:12 +00001148 <li>memory allocation checks using valgrind, and profiling tests</li>
Daniel Veillard19274092002-03-25 16:48:03 +00001149 <li>revamp of the Windows build and Makefiles</li>
1150</ul>
1151
Daniel Veillard34ce8be2002-03-18 19:37:11 +00001152<h3>2.4.18: Mar 18 2002</h3>
1153<ul>
1154 <li>bug fixes: tree, SAX, canonicalization, validation, portability,
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001155 XPath</li>
Daniel Veillard34ce8be2002-03-18 19:37:11 +00001156 <li>removed the --with-buffer option it was becoming unmaintainable</li>
1157 <li>serious cleanup of the Python makefiles</li>
1158 <li>speedup patch to XPath very effective for DocBook stylesheets</li>
1159 <li>Fixes for Windows build, cleanup of the documentation</li>
1160</ul>
1161
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00001162<h3>2.4.17: Mar 8 2002</h3>
1163<ul>
1164 <li>a lot of bug fixes, including "namespace nodes have no parents in
1165 XPath"</li>
1166 <li>fixed/improved the Python wrappers, added more examples and more
1167 regression tests, XPath extension functions can now return node-sets</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001168 <li>added the XML Canonicalization support from Aleksey Sanin</li>
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001169</ul>
1170
Daniel Veillard5f4b5992002-02-20 10:22:49 +00001171<h3>2.4.16: Feb 20 2002</h3>
1172<ul>
1173 <li>a lot of bug fixes, most of them were triggered by the XML Testsuite
1174 from OASIS and W3C. Compliance has been significantly improved.</li>
1175 <li>a couple of portability fixes too.</li>
1176</ul>
1177
Daniel Veillard397ff112002-02-11 18:27:20 +00001178<h3>2.4.15: Feb 11 2002</h3>
1179<ul>
1180 <li>Fixed the Makefiles, especially the python module ones</li>
1181 <li>A few bug fixes and cleanup</li>
1182 <li>Includes cleanup</li>
1183</ul>
1184
Daniel Veillardb6c1e2f2002-02-08 14:52:52 +00001185<h3>2.4.14: Feb 8 2002</h3>
1186<ul>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001187 <li>Change of License to the <a
Daniel Veillardb6c1e2f2002-02-08 14:52:52 +00001188 href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html">MIT
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001189 License</a> basically for integration in XFree86 codebase, and removing
1190 confusion around the previous dual-licensing</li>
Daniel Veillardb6c1e2f2002-02-08 14:52:52 +00001191 <li>added Python bindings, beta software but should already be quite
1192 complete</li>
1193 <li>a large number of fixes and cleanups, especially for all tree
1194 manipulations</li>
1195 <li>cleanup of the headers, generation of a reference API definition in
1196 XML</li>
1197</ul>
1198
1199<h3>2.4.13: Jan 14 2002</h3>
Daniel Veillard744683d2002-01-14 17:30:20 +00001200<ul>
1201 <li>update of the documentation: John Fleck and Charlie Bozeman</li>
1202 <li>cleanup of timing code from Justin Fletcher</li>
1203 <li>fixes for Windows and initial thread support on Win32: Igor and Serguei
1204 Narojnyi</li>
1205 <li>Cygwin patch from Robert Collins</li>
1206 <li>added xmlSetEntityReferenceFunc() for Keith Isdale work on xsldbg</li>
1207</ul>
1208
Daniel Veillardef90ba72001-12-07 14:24:22 +00001209<h3>2.4.12: Dec 7 2001</h3>
1210<ul>
1211 <li>a few bug fixes: thread (Gary Pennington), xmllint (Geert Kloosterman),
1212 XML parser (Robin Berjon), XPointer (Danny Jamshy), I/O cleanups
1213 (robert)</li>
1214 <li>Eric Lavigne contributed project files for MacOS</li>
1215 <li>some makefiles cleanups</li>
1216</ul>
1217
Daniel Veillarda4871052001-11-26 13:19:48 +00001218<h3>2.4.11: Nov 26 2001</h3>
1219<ul>
1220 <li>fixed a couple of errors in the includes, fixed a few bugs, some code
1221 cleanups</li>
1222 <li>xmllint man pages improvement by Heiko Rupp</li>
1223 <li>updated VMS build instructions from John A Fotheringham</li>
1224 <li>Windows Makefiles updates from Igor</li>
1225</ul>
1226
Daniel Veillard43d3f612001-11-10 11:57:23 +00001227<h3>2.4.10: Nov 10 2001</h3>
1228<ul>
1229 <li>URI escaping fix (Joel Young)</li>
1230 <li>added xmlGetNodePath() (for paths or XPointers generation)</li>
1231 <li>Fixes namespace handling problems when using DTD and validation</li>
1232 <li>improvements on xmllint: Morus Walter patches for --format and
1233 --encode, Stefan Kost and Heiko Rupp improvements on the --shell</li>
1234 <li>fixes for xmlcatalog linking pointed by Weiqi Gao</li>
1235 <li>fixes to the HTML parser</li>
1236</ul>
1237
1238<h3>2.4.9: Nov 6 2001</h3>
1239<ul>
1240 <li>fixes more catalog bugs</li>
1241 <li>avoid a compilation problem, improve xmlGetLineNo()</li>
1242</ul>
1243
Daniel Veillarded421aa2001-11-04 21:22:45 +00001244<h3>2.4.8: Nov 4 2001</h3>
1245<ul>
1246 <li>fixed SGML catalogs broken in previous release, updated xmlcatalog
1247 tool</li>
1248 <li>fixed a compile errors and some includes troubles.</li>
1249</ul>
1250
Daniel Veillard52dcab32001-10-30 12:51:17 +00001251<h3>2.4.7: Oct 30 2001</h3>
1252<ul>
1253 <li>exported some debugging interfaces</li>
1254 <li>serious rewrite of the catalog code</li>
1255 <li>integrated Gary Pennington thread safety patch, added configure option
1256 and regression tests</li>
1257 <li>removed an HTML parser bug</li>
1258 <li>fixed a couple of potentially serious validation bugs</li>
1259 <li>integrated the SGML DocBook support in xmllint</li>
1260 <li>changed the nanoftp anonymous login passwd</li>
1261 <li>some I/O cleanup and a couple of interfaces for Perl wrapper</li>
1262 <li>general bug fixes</li>
1263 <li>updated xmllint man page by John Fleck</li>
1264 <li>some VMS and Windows updates</li>
1265</ul>
1266
Daniel Veillard60087f32001-10-10 09:45:09 +00001267<h3>2.4.6: Oct 10 2001</h3>
1268<ul>
Daniel Veillard52dcab32001-10-30 12:51:17 +00001269 <li>added an updated man pages by John Fleck</li>
Daniel Veillard60087f32001-10-10 09:45:09 +00001270 <li>portability and configure fixes</li>
1271 <li>an infinite loop on the HTML parser was removed (William)</li>
1272 <li>Windows makefile patches from Igor</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001273 <li>fixed half a dozen bugs reported for libxml or libxslt</li>
Daniel Veillard60087f32001-10-10 09:45:09 +00001274 <li>updated xmlcatalog to be able to modify SGML super catalogs</li>
1275</ul>
1276
Daniel Veillarddadd0872001-09-15 09:21:44 +00001277<h3>2.4.5: Sep 14 2001</h3>
1278<ul>
1279 <li>Remove a few annoying bugs in 2.4.4</li>
1280 <li>forces the HTML serializer to output decimal charrefs since some
1281 version of Netscape can't handle hexadecimal ones</li>
1282</ul>
1283
1284<h3>1.8.16: Sep 14 2001</h3>
1285<ul>
1286 <li>maintenance release of the old libxml1 branch, couple of bug and
1287 portability fixes</li>
1288</ul>
1289
Daniel Veillard04382ae2001-09-12 18:51:30 +00001290<h3>2.4.4: Sep 12 2001</h3>
1291<ul>
1292 <li>added --convert to xmlcatalog, bug fixes and cleanups of XML
1293 Catalog</li>
1294 <li>a few bug fixes and some portability changes</li>
1295 <li>some documentation cleanups</li>
1296</ul>
1297
Daniel Veillard39936902001-08-24 00:49:01 +00001298<h3>2.4.3: Aug 23 2001</h3>
1299<ul>
1300 <li>XML Catalog support see the doc</li>
1301 <li>New NaN/Infinity floating point code</li>
1302 <li>A few bug fixes</li>
1303</ul>
1304
1305<h3>2.4.2: Aug 15 2001</h3>
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001306<ul>
1307 <li>adds xmlLineNumbersDefault() to control line number generation</li>
1308 <li>lot of bug fixes</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001309 <li>the Microsoft MSC projects files should now be up to date</li>
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001310 <li>inheritance of namespaces from DTD defaulted attributes</li>
1311 <li>fixes a serious potential security bug</li>
1312 <li>added a --format option to xmllint</li>
1313</ul>
1314
1315<h3>2.4.1: July 24 2001</h3>
1316<ul>
1317 <li>possibility to keep line numbers in the tree</li>
1318 <li>some computation NaN fixes</li>
1319 <li>extension of the XPath API</li>
1320 <li>cleanup for alpha and ia64 targets</li>
1321 <li>patch to allow saving through HTTP PUT or POST</li>
Daniel Veillard09ab7e12001-07-10 15:49:44 +00001322</ul>
1323
1324<h3>2.4.0: July 10 2001</h3>
1325<ul>
1326 <li>Fixed a few bugs in XPath, validation, and tree handling.</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001327 <li>Fixed XML Base implementation, added a couple of examples to the
Daniel Veillard09ab7e12001-07-10 15:49:44 +00001328 regression tests</li>
1329 <li>A bit of cleanup</li>
Daniel Veillardab8500d2000-10-15 21:06:19 +00001330</ul>
1331
Daniel Veillard5b43fde2001-07-05 23:31:40 +00001332<h3>2.3.14: July 5 2001</h3>
1333<ul>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001334 <li>fixed some entities problems and reduce memory requirement when
1335 substituting them</li>
Daniel Veillard5b43fde2001-07-05 23:31:40 +00001336 <li>lots of improvements in the XPath queries interpreter can be
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001337 substantially faster</li>
Daniel Veillard5b43fde2001-07-05 23:31:40 +00001338 <li>Makefiles and configure cleanups</li>
1339 <li>Fixes to XPath variable eval, and compare on empty node set</li>
1340 <li>HTML tag closing bug fixed</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001341 <li>Fixed an URI reference computation problem when validating</li>
Daniel Veillard5b43fde2001-07-05 23:31:40 +00001342</ul>
1343
Daniel Veillard2adbb512001-06-28 16:20:36 +00001344<h3>2.3.13: June 28 2001</h3>
1345<ul>
1346 <li>2.3.12 configure.in was broken as well as the push mode XML parser</li>
1347 <li>a few more fixes for compilation on Windows MSC by Yon Derek</li>
1348</ul>
1349
1350<h3>1.8.14: June 28 2001</h3>
1351<ul>
1352 <li>Zbigniew Chyla gave a patch to use the old XML parser in push mode</li>
1353 <li>Small Makefile fix</li>
1354</ul>
1355
Daniel Veillard11648102001-06-26 16:08:24 +00001356<h3>2.3.12: June 26 2001</h3>
1357<ul>
1358 <li>lots of cleanup</li>
1359 <li>a couple of validation fix</li>
1360 <li>fixed line number counting</li>
1361 <li>fixed serious problems in the XInclude processing</li>
1362 <li>added support for UTF8 BOM at beginning of entities</li>
1363 <li>fixed a strange gcc optimizer bugs in xpath handling of float, gcc-3.0
1364 miscompile uri.c (William), Thomas Leitner provided a fix for the
1365 optimizer on Tru64</li>
1366 <li>incorporated Yon Derek and Igor Zlatkovic fixes and improvements for
1367 compilation on Windows MSC</li>
1368 <li>update of libxml-doc.el (Felix Natter)</li>
1369 <li>fixed 2 bugs in URI normalization code</li>
1370</ul>
1371
Daniel Veillarde3c81b52001-06-17 14:50:34 +00001372<h3>2.3.11: June 17 2001</h3>
1373<ul>
1374 <li>updates to trio, Makefiles and configure should fix some portability
1375 problems (alpha)</li>
1376 <li>fixed some HTML serialization problems (pre, script, and block/inline
1377 handling), added encoding aware APIs, cleanup of this code</li>
1378 <li>added xmlHasNsProp()</li>
1379 <li>implemented a specific PI for encoding support in the DocBook SGML
1380 parser</li>
1381 <li>some XPath fixes (-Infinity, / as a function parameter and namespaces
1382 node selection)</li>
1383 <li>fixed a performance problem and an error in the validation code</li>
1384 <li>fixed XInclude routine to implement the recursive behaviour</li>
1385 <li>fixed xmlFreeNode problem when libxml is included statically twice</li>
1386 <li>added --version to xmllint for bug reports</li>
1387</ul>
1388
Daniel Veillard2e4f1882001-06-01 10:11:57 +00001389<h3>2.3.10: June 1 2001</h3>
1390<ul>
1391 <li>fixed the SGML catalog support</li>
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001392 <li>a number of reported bugs got fixed, in XPath, iconv detection,
1393 XInclude processing</li>
Daniel Veillard2e4f1882001-06-01 10:11:57 +00001394 <li>XPath string function should now handle unicode correctly</li>
1395</ul>
1396
Daniel Veillard4623acd2001-05-19 15:13:15 +00001397<h3>2.3.9: May 19 2001</h3>
1398
1399<p>Lots of bugfixes, and added a basic SGML catalog support:</p>
1400<ul>
1401 <li>HTML push bugfix #54891 and another patch from Jonas Borgström</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001402 <li>some serious speed optimization again</li>
Daniel Veillard4623acd2001-05-19 15:13:15 +00001403 <li>some documentation cleanups</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001404 <li>trying to get better linking on Solaris (-R)</li>
Daniel Veillard4623acd2001-05-19 15:13:15 +00001405 <li>XPath API cleanup from Thomas Broyer</li>
1406 <li>Validation bug fixed #54631, added a patch from Gary Pennington, fixed
1407 xmlValidGetValidElements()</li>
1408 <li>Added an INSTALL file</li>
1409 <li>Attribute removal added to API: #54433</li>
1410 <li>added a basic support for SGML catalogs</li>
1411 <li>fixed xmlKeepBlanksDefault(0) API</li>
1412 <li>bugfix in xmlNodeGetLang()</li>
1413 <li>fixed a small configure portability problem</li>
1414 <li>fixed an inversion of SYSTEM and PUBLIC identifier in HTML document</li>
1415</ul>
1416
Daniel Veillarda265af72001-05-14 11:13:58 +00001417<h3>1.8.13: May 14 2001</h3>
1418<ul>
1419 <li>bugfixes release of the old libxml1 branch used by Gnome</li>
1420</ul>
1421
Daniel Veillard3bbbe6f2001-05-03 11:15:37 +00001422<h3>2.3.8: May 3 2001</h3>
1423<ul>
1424 <li>Integrated an SGML DocBook parser for the Gnome project</li>
1425 <li>Fixed a few things in the HTML parser</li>
1426 <li>Fixed some XPath bugs raised by XSLT use, tried to fix the floating
1427 point portability issue</li>
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001428 <li>Speed improvement (8M/s for SAX, 3M/s for DOM, 1.5M/s for
1429 DOM+validation using the XML REC as input and a 700MHz celeron).</li>
Daniel Veillard3bbbe6f2001-05-03 11:15:37 +00001430 <li>incorporated more Windows cleanup</li>
1431 <li>added xmlSaveFormatFile()</li>
1432 <li>fixed problems in copying nodes with entities references (gdome)</li>
1433 <li>removed some troubles surrounding the new validation module</li>
1434</ul>
1435
Daniel Veillarda41123c2001-04-22 19:31:20 +00001436<h3>2.3.7: April 22 2001</h3>
1437<ul>
1438 <li>lots of small bug fixes, corrected XPointer</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001439 <li>Non deterministic content model validation support</li>
Daniel Veillarda41123c2001-04-22 19:31:20 +00001440 <li>added xmlDocCopyNode for gdome2</li>
1441 <li>revamped the way the HTML parser handles end of tags</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001442 <li>XPath: corrections of namespaces support and number formatting</li>
Daniel Veillarda41123c2001-04-22 19:31:20 +00001443 <li>Windows: Igor Zlatkovic patches for MSC compilation</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001444 <li>HTML output fixes from P C Chow and William M. Brack</li>
Daniel Veillarda41123c2001-04-22 19:31:20 +00001445 <li>Improved validation speed sensible for DocBook</li>
1446 <li>fixed a big bug with ID declared in external parsed entities</li>
1447 <li>portability fixes, update of Trio from Bjorn Reese</li>
1448</ul>
1449
Daniel Veillardafc73112001-04-11 11:51:41 +00001450<h3>2.3.6: April 8 2001</h3>
1451<ul>
1452 <li>Code cleanup using extreme gcc compiler warning options, found and
1453 cleared half a dozen potential problem</li>
1454 <li>the Eazel team found an XML parser bug</li>
1455 <li>cleaned up the user of some of the string formatting function. used the
1456 trio library code to provide the one needed when the platform is missing
1457 them</li>
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001458 <li>xpath: removed a memory leak and fixed the predicate evaluation
1459 problem, extended the testsuite and cleaned up the result. XPointer seems
1460 broken ...</li>
Daniel Veillardafc73112001-04-11 11:51:41 +00001461</ul>
1462
Daniel Veillard56a4cb82001-03-24 17:00:36 +00001463<h3>2.3.5: Mar 23 2001</h3>
1464<ul>
1465 <li>Biggest change is separate parsing and evaluation of XPath expressions,
1466 there is some new APIs for this too</li>
1467 <li>included a number of bug fixes(XML push parser, 51876, notations,
1468 52299)</li>
1469 <li>Fixed some portability issues</li>
1470</ul>
1471
Daniel Veillarde356c282001-03-10 12:32:04 +00001472<h3>2.3.4: Mar 10 2001</h3>
1473<ul>
1474 <li>Fixed bugs #51860 and #51861</li>
1475 <li>Added a global variable xmlDefaultBufferSize to allow default buffer
1476 size to be application tunable.</li>
1477 <li>Some cleanup in the validation code, still a bug left and this part
1478 should probably be rewritten to support ambiguous content model :-\</li>
1479 <li>Fix a couple of serious bugs introduced or raised by changes in 2.3.3
1480 parser</li>
1481 <li>Fixed another bug in xmlNodeGetContent()</li>
1482 <li>Bjorn fixed XPath node collection and Number formatting</li>
1483 <li>Fixed a loop reported in the HTML parsing</li>
1484 <li>blank space are reported even if the Dtd content model proves that they
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001485 are formatting spaces, this is for XML conformance</li>
Daniel Veillarde356c282001-03-10 12:32:04 +00001486</ul>
1487
Daniel Veillardb402c072001-03-01 17:28:58 +00001488<h3>2.3.3: Mar 1 2001</h3>
1489<ul>
1490 <li>small change in XPath for XSLT</li>
1491 <li>documentation cleanups</li>
1492 <li>fix in validation by Gary Pennington</li>
1493 <li>serious parsing performances improvements</li>
1494</ul>
1495
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +00001496<h3>2.3.2: Feb 24 2001</h3>
Daniel Veillard71681102001-02-24 17:48:53 +00001497<ul>
1498 <li>chasing XPath bugs, found a bunch, completed some TODO</li>
1499 <li>fixed a Dtd parsing bug</li>
1500 <li>fixed a bug in xmlNodeGetContent</li>
1501 <li>ID/IDREF support partly rewritten by Gary Pennington</li>
1502</ul>
1503
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +00001504<h3>2.3.1: Feb 15 2001</h3>
Daniel Veillard6e6a6cc2001-02-15 15:55:44 +00001505<ul>
1506 <li>some XPath and HTML bug fixes for XSLT</li>
1507 <li>small extension of the hash table interfaces for DOM gdome2
1508 implementation</li>
1509 <li>A few bug fixes</li>
1510</ul>
1511
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +00001512<h3>2.3.0: Feb 8 2001 (2.2.12 was on 25 Jan but I didn't kept track)</h3>
Daniel Veillard6e6a6cc2001-02-15 15:55:44 +00001513<ul>
1514 <li>Lots of XPath bug fixes</li>
1515 <li>Add a mode with Dtd lookup but without validation error reporting for
1516 XSLT</li>
1517 <li>Add support for text node without escaping (XSLT)</li>
1518 <li>bug fixes for xmlCheckFilename</li>
1519 <li>validation code bug fixes from Gary Pennington</li>
1520 <li>Patch from Paul D. Smith correcting URI path normalization</li>
1521 <li>Patch to allow simultaneous install of libxml-devel and
1522 libxml2-devel</li>
1523 <li>the example Makefile is now fixed</li>
1524 <li>added HTML to the RPM packages</li>
1525 <li>tree copying bugfixes</li>
1526 <li>updates to Windows makefiles</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001527 <li>optimization patch from Bjorn Reese</li>
Daniel Veillard6e6a6cc2001-02-15 15:55:44 +00001528</ul>
1529
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +00001530<h3>2.2.11: Jan 4 2001</h3>
Daniel Veillard503b8932001-01-05 06:36:31 +00001531<ul>
1532 <li>bunch of bug fixes (memory I/O, xpath, ftp/http, ...)</li>
1533 <li>added htmlHandleOmittedElem()</li>
1534 <li>Applied Bjorn Reese's IPV6 first patch</li>
1535 <li>Applied Paul D. Smith patches for validation of XInclude results</li>
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +00001536 <li>added XPointer xmlns() new scheme support</li>
Daniel Veillard503b8932001-01-05 06:36:31 +00001537</ul>
1538
Daniel Veillard2ddd23d2000-11-25 10:42:19 +00001539<h3>2.2.10: Nov 25 2000</h3>
Daniel Veillard9d343c42000-11-25 10:12:43 +00001540<ul>
1541 <li>Fix the Windows problems of 2.2.8</li>
1542 <li>integrate OpenVMS patches</li>
1543 <li>better handling of some nasty HTML input</li>
1544 <li>Improved the XPointer implementation</li>
1545 <li>integrate a number of provided patches</li>
1546</ul>
1547
Daniel Veillard2ddd23d2000-11-25 10:42:19 +00001548<h3>2.2.9: Nov 25 2000</h3>
1549<ul>
1550 <li>erroneous release :-(</li>
1551</ul>
1552
Daniel Veillard28929b22000-11-13 18:22:49 +00001553<h3>2.2.8: Nov 13 2000</h3>
1554<ul>
1555 <li>First version of <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude">XInclude</a>
1556 support</li>
1557 <li>Patch in conditional section handling</li>
1558 <li>updated MS compiler project</li>
1559 <li>fixed some XPath problems</li>
1560 <li>added an URI escaping function</li>
1561 <li>some other bug fixes</li>
1562</ul>
1563
1564<h3>2.2.7: Oct 31 2000</h3>
1565<ul>
1566 <li>added message redirection</li>
1567 <li>XPath improvements (thanks TOM !)</li>
1568 <li>xmlIOParseDTD() added</li>
1569 <li>various small fixes in the HTML, URI, HTTP and XPointer support</li>
1570 <li>some cleanup of the Makefile, autoconf and the distribution content</li>
1571</ul>
1572
Daniel Veillard29a11cc2000-10-25 13:32:39 +00001573<h3>2.2.6: Oct 25 2000:</h3>
1574<ul>
1575 <li>Added an hash table module, migrated a number of internal structure to
1576 those</li>
1577 <li>Fixed a posteriori validation problems</li>
1578 <li>HTTP module cleanups</li>
1579 <li>HTML parser improvements (tag errors, script/style handling, attribute
1580 normalization)</li>
1581 <li>coalescing of adjacent text nodes</li>
1582 <li>couple of XPath bug fixes, exported the internal API</li>
1583</ul>
1584
Daniel Veillardab8500d2000-10-15 21:06:19 +00001585<h3>2.2.5: Oct 15 2000:</h3>
Daniel Veillard4c3a2031999-11-19 17:46:26 +00001586<ul>
Daniel Veillard189446d2000-10-13 10:23:06 +00001587 <li>XPointer implementation and testsuite</li>
1588 <li>Lot of XPath fixes, added variable and functions registration, more
1589 tests</li>
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001590 <li>Portability fixes, lots of enhancements toward an easy Windows build
1591 and release</li>
Daniel Veillard189446d2000-10-13 10:23:06 +00001592 <li>Late validation fixes</li>
1593 <li>Integrated a lot of contributed patches</li>
1594 <li>added memory management docs</li>
Daniel Veillardab8500d2000-10-15 21:06:19 +00001595 <li>a performance problem when using large buffer seems fixed</li>
Daniel Veillard189446d2000-10-13 10:23:06 +00001596</ul>
1597
1598<h3>2.2.4: Oct 1 2000:</h3>
1599<ul>
1600 <li>main XPath problem fixed</li>
1601 <li>Integrated portability patches for Windows</li>
1602 <li>Serious bug fixes on the URI and HTML code</li>
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +00001603</ul>
1604
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +00001605<h3>2.2.3: Sep 17 2000</h3>
1606<ul>
1607 <li>bug fixes</li>
1608 <li>cleanup of entity handling code</li>
1609 <li>overall review of all loops in the parsers, all sprintf usage has been
1610 checked too</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001611 <li>Far better handling of larges Dtd. Validating against DocBook XML Dtd
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +00001612 works smoothly now.</li>
1613</ul>
1614
1615<h3>1.8.10: Sep 6 2000</h3>
1616<ul>
1617 <li>bug fix release for some Gnome projects</li>
1618</ul>
1619
1620<h3>2.2.2: August 12 2000</h3>
Daniel Veillard786d7c82000-08-12 23:38:57 +00001621<ul>
1622 <li>mostly bug fixes</li>
Daniel Veillardec78c0f2000-08-25 10:25:23 +00001623 <li>started adding routines to access xml parser context options</li>
Daniel Veillard786d7c82000-08-12 23:38:57 +00001624</ul>
1625
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +00001626<h3>2.2.1: July 21 2000</h3>
Daniel Veillarda2679fa2000-07-22 02:38:15 +00001627<ul>
1628 <li>a purely bug fixes release</li>
1629 <li>fixed an encoding support problem when parsing from a memory block</li>
1630 <li>fixed a DOCTYPE parsing problem</li>
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001631 <li>removed a bug in the function allowing to override the memory
1632 allocation routines</li>
Daniel Veillarda2679fa2000-07-22 02:38:15 +00001633</ul>
1634
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +00001635<h3>2.2.0: July 14 2000</h3>
Daniel Veillard94e90602000-07-17 14:38:19 +00001636<ul>
1637 <li>applied a lot of portability fixes</li>
1638 <li>better encoding support/cleanup and saving (content is now always
1639 encoded in UTF-8)</li>
1640 <li>the HTML parser now correctly handles encodings</li>
1641 <li>added xmlHasProp()</li>
1642 <li>fixed a serious problem with &amp;#38;</li>
1643 <li>propagated the fix to FTP client</li>
1644 <li>cleanup, bugfixes, etc ...</li>
1645 <li>Added a page about <a href="encoding.html">libxml Internationalization
1646 support</a></li>
1647</ul>
1648
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00001649<h3>1.8.9: July 9 2000</h3>
1650<ul>
1651 <li>fixed the spec the RPMs should be better</li>
1652 <li>fixed a serious bug in the FTP implementation, released 1.8.9 to solve
1653 rpmfind users problem</li>
1654</ul>
1655
Daniel Veillard6388e172000-07-03 16:07:19 +00001656<h3>2.1.1: July 1 2000</h3>
1657<ul>
1658 <li>fixes a couple of bugs in the 2.1.0 packaging</li>
1659 <li>improvements on the HTML parser</li>
1660</ul>
1661
Daniel Veillard3f6f7f62000-06-30 17:58:25 +00001662<h3>2.1.0 and 1.8.8: June 29 2000</h3>
1663<ul>
Daniel Veillardc0801af2002-05-28 16:28:42 +00001664 <li>1.8.8 is mostly a commodity package for upgrading to libxml2 according
1665 to <a href="upgrade.html">new instructions</a>. It fixes a nasty problem
Daniel Veillard3f6f7f62000-06-30 17:58:25 +00001666 about &amp;#38; charref parsing</li>
1667 <li>2.1.0 also ease the upgrade from libxml v1 to the recent version. it
1668 also contains numerous fixes and enhancements:
1669 <ul>
1670 <li>added xmlStopParser() to stop parsing</li>
1671 <li>improved a lot parsing speed when there is large CDATA blocs</li>
1672 <li>includes XPath patches provided by Picdar Technology</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001673 <li>tried to fix as much as possible DTD validation and namespace
Daniel Veillard3f6f7f62000-06-30 17:58:25 +00001674 related problems</li>
1675 <li>output to a given encoding has been added/tested</li>
1676 <li>lot of various fixes</li>
1677 </ul>
1678 </li>
1679</ul>
1680
Daniel Veillarde0aed302000-04-16 08:52:20 +00001681<h3>2.0.0: Apr 12 2000</h3>
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +00001682<ul>
1683 <li>First public release of libxml2. If you are using libxml, it's a good
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001684 idea to check the 1.x to 2.x upgrade instructions. NOTE: while initially
1685 scheduled for Apr 3 the release occurred only on Apr 12 due to massive
Daniel Veillarde0aed302000-04-16 08:52:20 +00001686 workload.</li>
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +00001687 <li>The include are now located under $prefix/include/libxml (instead of
Daniel Veillarde0aed302000-04-16 08:52:20 +00001688 $prefix/include/gnome-xml), they also are referenced by
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00001689 <pre>#include &lt;libxml/xxx.h&gt;</pre>
Daniel Veillarde0aed302000-04-16 08:52:20 +00001690 <p>instead of</p>
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +00001691 <pre>#include "xxx.h"</pre>
1692 </li>
Daniel Veillard8f621982000-03-20 13:07:15 +00001693 <li>a new URI module for parsing URIs and following strictly RFC 2396</li>
1694 <li>the memory allocation routines used by libxml can now be overloaded
1695 dynamically by using xmlMemSetup()</li>
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +00001696 <li>The previously CVS only tool tester has been renamed
1697 <strong>xmllint</strong> and is now installed as part of the libxml2
1698 package</li>
Daniel Veillarde0aed302000-04-16 08:52:20 +00001699 <li>The I/O interface has been revamped. There is now ways to plug in
1700 specific I/O modules, either at the URI scheme detection level using
1701 xmlRegisterInputCallbacks() or by passing I/O functions when creating a
1702 parser context using xmlCreateIOParserCtxt()</li>
1703 <li>there is a C preprocessor macro LIBXML_VERSION providing the version
1704 number of the libxml module in use</li>
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001705 <li>a number of optional features of libxml can now be excluded at
1706 configure time (FTP/HTTP/HTML/XPath/Debug)</li>
Daniel Veillardedfb29b2000-03-14 19:59:05 +00001707</ul>
1708
1709<h3>2.0.0beta: Mar 14 2000</h3>
1710<ul>
1711 <li>This is a first Beta release of libxml version 2</li>
Daniel Veillarde356c282001-03-10 12:32:04 +00001712 <li>It's available only from<a href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/">xmlsoft.org
1713 FTP</a>, it's packaged as libxml2-2.0.0beta and available as tar and
1714 RPMs</li>
Daniel Veillardedfb29b2000-03-14 19:59:05 +00001715 <li>This version is now the head in the Gnome CVS base, the old one is
1716 available under the tag LIB_XML_1_X</li>
Daniel Veillardc0801af2002-05-28 16:28:42 +00001717 <li>This includes a very large set of changes. From a programmatic point
1718 of view applications should not have to be modified too much, check the
1719 <a href="upgrade.html">upgrade page</a></li>
Daniel Veillardedfb29b2000-03-14 19:59:05 +00001720 <li>Some interfaces may changes (especially a bit about encoding).</li>
1721 <li>the updates includes:
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +00001722 <ul>
Daniel Veillardedfb29b2000-03-14 19:59:05 +00001723 <li>fix I18N support. ISO-Latin-x/UTF-8/UTF-16 (nearly) seems correctly
1724 handled now</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001725 <li>Better handling of entities, especially well-formedness checking
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001726 and proper PEref extensions in external subsets</li>
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +00001727 <li>DTD conditional sections</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001728 <li>Validation now correctly handle entities content</li>
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +00001729 <li><a href="http://rpmfind.net/tools/gdome/messages/0039.html">change
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001730 structures to accommodate DOM</a></li>
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +00001731 </ul>
1732 </li>
Daniel Veillardedfb29b2000-03-14 19:59:05 +00001733 <li>Serious progress were made toward compliance, <a
1734 href="conf/result.html">here are the result of the test</a> against the
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001735 OASIS testsuite (except the Japanese tests since I don't support that
Daniel Veillardedfb29b2000-03-14 19:59:05 +00001736 encoding yet). This URL is rebuilt every couple of hours using the CVS
1737 head version.</li>
Daniel Veillarde41f2b72000-01-30 20:00:07 +00001738</ul>
1739
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00001740<h3>1.8.7: Mar 6 2000</h3>
1741<ul>
1742 <li>This is a bug fix release:</li>
1743 <li>It is possible to disable the ignorable blanks heuristic used by
1744 libxml-1.x, a new function xmlKeepBlanksDefault(0) will allow this. Note
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001745 that for adherence to XML spec, this behaviour will be disabled by
1746 default in 2.x . The same function will allow to keep compatibility for
1747 old code.</li>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00001748 <li>Blanks in &lt;a&gt; &lt;/a&gt; constructs are not ignored anymore,
1749 avoiding heuristic is really the Right Way :-\</li>
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00001750 <li>The unchecked use of snprintf which was breaking libxml-1.8.6
1751 compilation on some platforms has been fixed</li>
1752 <li>nanoftp.c nanohttp.c: Fixed '#' and '?' stripping when processing
1753 URIs</li>
1754</ul>
1755
Daniel Veillarde41f2b72000-01-30 20:00:07 +00001756<h3>1.8.6: Jan 31 2000</h3>
1757<ul>
1758 <li>added a nanoFTP transport module, debugged until the new version of <a
1759 href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/rpmfind.html">rpmfind</a> can use
1760 it without troubles</li>
Daniel Veillardda07c342000-01-25 18:31:22 +00001761</ul>
1762
1763<h3>1.8.5: Jan 21 2000</h3>
1764<ul>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +00001765 <li>adding APIs to parse a well balanced chunk of XML (production <a
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001766 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#NT-content">[43] content</a> of the
1767 XML spec)</li>
Daniel Veillard461a66c2000-01-18 18:01:01 +00001768 <li>fixed a hideous bug in xmlGetProp pointed by Rune.Djurhuus@fast.no</li>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00001769 <li>Jody Goldberg &lt;jgoldberg@home.com&gt; provided another patch trying
1770 to solve the zlib checks problems</li>
Daniel Veillard461a66c2000-01-18 18:01:01 +00001771 <li>The current state in gnome CVS base is expected to ship as 1.8.5 with
1772 gnumeric soon</li>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +00001773</ul>
1774
1775<h3>1.8.4: Jan 13 2000</h3>
1776<ul>
1777 <li>bug fixes, reintroduced xmlNewGlobalNs(), fixed xmlNewNs()</li>
1778 <li>all exit() call should have been removed from libxml</li>
1779 <li>fixed a problem with INCLUDE_WINSOCK on WIN32 platform</li>
1780 <li>added newDocFragment()</li>
Daniel Veillardf84f71f2000-01-05 19:54:23 +00001781</ul>
1782
1783<h3>1.8.3: Jan 5 2000</h3>
1784<ul>
1785 <li>a Push interface for the XML and HTML parsers</li>
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00001786 <li>a shell-like interface to the document tree (try tester --shell :-)</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001787 <li>lots of bug fixes and improvement added over XMas holidays</li>
Daniel Veillard437b87b2000-01-03 17:30:46 +00001788 <li>fixed the DTD parsing code to work with the xhtml DTD</li>
Daniel Veillardf84f71f2000-01-05 19:54:23 +00001789 <li>added xmlRemoveProp(), xmlRemoveID() and xmlRemoveRef()</li>
1790 <li>Fixed bugs in xmlNewNs()</li>
Daniel Veillard437b87b2000-01-03 17:30:46 +00001791 <li>External entity loading code has been revamped, now it uses
Daniel Veillardf84f71f2000-01-05 19:54:23 +00001792 xmlLoadExternalEntity(), some fix on entities processing were added</li>
Daniel Veillard437b87b2000-01-03 17:30:46 +00001793 <li>cleaned up WIN32 includes of socket stuff</li>
Daniel Veillard5cb5ab81999-12-21 15:35:29 +00001794</ul>
1795
1796<h3>1.8.2: Dec 21 1999</h3>
1797<ul>
Daniel Veillardb24054a1999-12-18 15:32:46 +00001798 <li>I got another problem with includes and C++, I hope this issue is fixed
1799 for good this time</li>
Daniel Veillard5cb5ab81999-12-21 15:35:29 +00001800 <li>Added a few tree modification functions: xmlReplaceNode,
1801 xmlAddPrevSibling, xmlAddNextSibling, xmlNodeSetName and
1802 xmlDocSetRootElement</li>
1803 <li>Tried to improve the HTML output with help from <a
1804 href="mailto:clahey@umich.edu">Chris Lahey</a></li>
Daniel Veillarde4e51311999-12-18 15:32:46 +00001805</ul>
Daniel Veillardb24054a1999-12-18 15:32:46 +00001806
Daniel Veillarde4e51311999-12-18 15:32:46 +00001807<h3>1.8.1: Dec 18 1999</h3>
1808<ul>
1809 <li>various patches to avoid troubles when using libxml with C++ compilers
1810 the "namespace" keyword and C escaping in include files</li>
1811 <li>a problem in one of the core macros IS_CHAR was corrected</li>
1812 <li>fixed a bug introduced in 1.8.0 breaking default namespace processing,
1813 and more specifically the Dia application</li>
Daniel Veillard944b5ff1999-12-15 19:08:24 +00001814 <li>fixed a posteriori validation (validation after parsing, or by using a
1815 Dtd not specified in the original document)</li>
Daniel Veillardb24054a1999-12-18 15:32:46 +00001816 <li>fixed a bug in</li>
Daniel Veillard10a2c651999-12-12 13:03:50 +00001817</ul>
1818
1819<h3>1.8.0: Dec 12 1999</h3>
1820<ul>
1821 <li>cleanup, especially memory wise</li>
1822 <li>the parser should be more reliable, especially the HTML one, it should
1823 not crash, whatever the input !</li>
1824 <li>Integrated various patches, especially a speedup improvement for large
1825 dataset from <a href="mailto:cnygard@bellatlantic.net">Carl Nygard</a>,
1826 configure with --with-buffers to enable them.</li>
1827 <li>attribute normalization, oops should have been added long ago !</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001828 <li>attributes defaulted from DTDs should be available, xmlSetProp() now
1829 does entities escaping by default.</li>
Daniel Veillard4c3a2031999-11-19 17:46:26 +00001830</ul>
Daniel Veillard35008381999-10-25 13:15:52 +00001831
1832<h3>1.7.4: Oct 25 1999</h3>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00001833<ul>
Daniel Veillard35008381999-10-25 13:15:52 +00001834 <li>Lots of HTML improvement</li>
1835 <li>Fixed some errors when saving both XML and HTML</li>
1836 <li>More examples, the regression tests should now look clean</li>
1837 <li>Fixed a bug with contiguous charref</li>
1838</ul>
1839
1840<h3>1.7.3: Sep 29 1999</h3>
1841<ul>
1842 <li>portability problems fixed</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001843 <li>snprintf was used unconditionally, leading to link problems on system
Daniel Veillard35008381999-10-25 13:15:52 +00001844 were it's not available, fixed</li>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00001845</ul>
1846
1847<h3>1.7.1: Sep 24 1999</h3>
1848<ul>
1849 <li>The basic type for strings manipulated by libxml has been renamed in
1850 1.7.1 from <strong>CHAR</strong> to <strong>xmlChar</strong>. The reason
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001851 is that CHAR was conflicting with a predefined type on Windows. However
1852 on non WIN32 environment, compatibility is provided by the way of a
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00001853 <strong>#define </strong>.</li>
1854 <li>Changed another error : the use of a structure field called errno, and
1855 leading to troubles on platforms where it's a macro</li>
1856</ul>
1857
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001858<h3>1.7.0: Sep 23 1999</h3>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00001859<ul>
1860 <li>Added the ability to fetch remote DTD or parsed entities, see the <a
Daniel Veillard9cb5ff42001-01-29 08:22:21 +00001861 href="html/libxml-nanohttp.html">nanohttp</a> module.</li>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00001862 <li>Added an errno to report errors by another mean than a simple printf
1863 like callback</li>
1864 <li>Finished ID/IDREF support and checking when validation</li>
1865 <li>Serious memory leaks fixed (there is now a <a
Daniel Veillard9cb5ff42001-01-29 08:22:21 +00001866 href="html/libxml-xmlmemory.html">memory wrapper</a> module)</li>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00001867 <li>Improvement of <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath">XPath</a>
1868 implementation</li>
1869 <li>Added an HTML parser front-end</li>
1870</ul>
1871
1872<h2><a name="XML">XML</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00001873
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +00001874<p><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml">XML is a standard</a> for
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00001875markup-based structured documents. Here is <a name="example">an example XML
1876document</a>:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00001877<pre>&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
1878&lt;EXAMPLE prop1="gnome is great" prop2="&amp;amp; linux too"&gt;
1879 &lt;head&gt;
1880 &lt;title&gt;Welcome to Gnome&lt;/title&gt;
1881 &lt;/head&gt;
1882 &lt;chapter&gt;
1883 &lt;title&gt;The Linux adventure&lt;/title&gt;
1884 &lt;p&gt;bla bla bla ...&lt;/p&gt;
1885 &lt;image href="linus.gif"/&gt;
1886 &lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;
1887 &lt;/chapter&gt;
1888&lt;/EXAMPLE&gt;</pre>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00001889
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00001890<p>The first line specifies that it is an XML document and gives useful
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +00001891information about its encoding. Then the rest of the document is a text
1892format whose structure is specified by tags between brackets. <strong>Each
1893tag opened has to be closed</strong>. XML is pedantic about this. However, if
1894a tag is empty (no content), a single tag can serve as both the opening and
1895closing tag if it ends with <code>/&gt;</code> rather than with
1896<code>&gt;</code>. Note that, for example, the image tag has no content (just
1897an attribute) and is closed by ending the tag with <code>/&gt;</code>.</p>
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +00001898
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +00001899<p>XML can be applied successfully to a wide range of tasks, ranging from
1900long term structured document maintenance (where it follows the steps of
1901SGML) to simple data encoding mechanisms like configuration file formatting
1902(glade), spreadsheets (gnumeric), or even shorter lived documents such as
1903WebDAV where it is used to encode remote calls between a client and a
1904server.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00001905
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +00001906<h2><a name="XSLT">XSLT</a></h2>
1907
Daniel Veillard6e6a6cc2001-02-15 15:55:44 +00001908<p>Check <a href="http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT">the separate libxslt page</a></p>
1909
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001910<p><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt">XSL Transformations</a>, is a
1911language for transforming XML documents into other XML documents (or
1912HTML/textual output).</p>
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +00001913
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +00001914<p>A separate library called libxslt is available implementing XSLT-1.0 for
1915libxml2. This module "libxslt" too can be found in the Gnome CVS base.</p>
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +00001916
Daniel Veillard383b1472001-01-23 11:39:52 +00001917<p>You can check the <a
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00001918href="http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/libxslt/FEATURES">features</a>
1919supported and the progresses on the <a
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00001920href="http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/libxslt/ChangeLog"
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00001921name="Changelog">Changelog</a>.</p>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00001922
1923<h2><a name="Python">Python and bindings</a></h2>
1924
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +00001925<p>There are a number of language bindings and wrappers available for
1926libxml2, the list below is not exhaustive. Please contact the <a
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00001927href="http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/xml-bindings">xml-bindings@gnome.org</a>
1928(<a href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml-bindings/">archives</a>) in
1929order to get updates to this list or to discuss the specific topic of libxml2
1930or libxslt wrappers or bindings:</p>
1931<ul>
Daniel Veillardc14401e2002-11-20 14:28:17 +00001932 <li><a href="http://libxmlplusplus.sourceforge.net/">Libxml++</a> seems the
1933 most up-to-date C++ bindings for libxml2, check the <a
1934 href="http://libxmlplusplus.sourceforge.net/reference/html/hierarchy.html">documentation</a>
1935 and the <a
1936 href="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/libxmlplusplus/libxml%2b%2b/examples/">examples</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00001937 <li>There is another <a href="http://libgdome-cpp.berlios.de/">C++ wrapper
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00001938 based on the gdome2 bindings</a> maintained by Tobias Peters.</li>
Daniel Veillard9b6fd302002-05-13 12:06:47 +00001939 <li>and a third C++ wrapper by Peter Jones &lt;pjones@pmade.org&gt;
1940 <p>Website: <a
1941 href="http://pmade.org/pjones/software/xmlwrapp/">http://pmade.org/pjones/software/xmlwrapp/</a></p>
1942 </li>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00001943 <li><a
1944 href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/2001-March/msg00014.html">Matt
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00001945 Sergeant</a> developed <a
1946 href="http://axkit.org/download/">XML::LibXSLT</a>, a Perl wrapper for
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00001947 libxml2/libxslt as part of the <a href="http://axkit.com/">AxKit XML
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00001948 application server</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillard4ac494b2003-09-18 15:08:00 +00001949 <li>If you're interested into scripting XML processing, have a look at <a
1950 href="http://xsh.sourceforge.net/">XSH</a> an XML editing shell based on
1951 Libxml2 Perl bindings.</li>
Daniel Veillard21473672002-06-17 07:29:22 +00001952 <li><a href="mailto:dkuhlman@cutter.rexx.com">Dave Kuhlman</a> provides an
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00001953 earlier version of the libxml/libxslt <a
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00001954 href="http://www.rexx.com/~dkuhlman">wrappers for Python</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillard21473672002-06-17 07:29:22 +00001955 <li>Gopal.V and Peter Minten develop <a
1956 href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/libxmlsharp">libxml#</a>, a set of
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00001957 C# libxml2 bindings.</li>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00001958 <li>Petr Kozelka provides <a
1959 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/libxml2-pas">Pascal units to glue
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00001960 libxml2</a> with Kylix, Delphi and other Pascal compilers.</li>
Daniel Veillardb2fb8ed2002-04-01 09:33:12 +00001961 <li>Uwe Fechner also provides <a
1962 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/idom2-pas/">idom2</a>, a DOM2
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00001963 implementation for Kylix2/D5/D6 from Borland.</li>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00001964 <li>Wai-Sun "Squidster" Chia provides <a
1965 href="http://www.rubycolor.org/arc/redist/">bindings for Ruby</a> and
1966 libxml2 bindings are also available in Ruby through the <a
1967 href="http://libgdome-ruby.berlios.de/">libgdome-ruby</a> module
1968 maintained by Tobias Peters.</li>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00001969 <li>Steve Ball and contributors maintains <a
1970 href="http://tclxml.sourceforge.net/">libxml2 and libxslt bindings for
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00001971 Tcl</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00001972 <li>There is support for libxml2 in the DOM module of PHP.</li>
Daniel Veillard41b01a82003-02-27 11:09:06 +00001973 <li><a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/classpathx/">LibxmlJ</a> is
Daniel Veillard806cada2003-03-19 21:58:59 +00001974 an effort to create a 100% JAXP-compatible Java wrapper for libxml2 and
1975 libxslt as part of GNU ClasspathX project.</li>
Daniel Veillard6d373a22003-11-04 10:26:43 +00001976 <li>Patrick McPhee provides Rexx bindings fof libxml2 and libxslt, look for
1977 <a href="http://www.interlog.com/~ptjm/software.html">RexxXML</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00001978</ul>
1979
Daniel Veillardc0801af2002-05-28 16:28:42 +00001980<p>The distribution includes a set of Python bindings, which are guaranteed
1981to be maintained as part of the library in the future, though the Python
Daniel Veillard41b01a82003-02-27 11:09:06 +00001982interface have not yet reached the completeness of the C API.</p>
Daniel Veillard7b4b2f92003-01-06 13:11:20 +00001983
Daniel Veillard27907c72002-12-16 16:05:58 +00001984<p><a href="mailto:stephane.bidoul@softwareag.com">Stéphane Bidoul</a>
Daniel Veillard7b4b2f92003-01-06 13:11:20 +00001985maintains <a href="http://users.skynet.be/sbi/libxml-python/">a Windows port
1986of the Python bindings</a>.</p>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00001987
Daniel Veillard7ef0fcb2002-12-14 10:38:55 +00001988<p>Note to people interested in building bindings, the API is formalized as
1989<a href="libxml2-api.xml">an XML API description file</a> which allows to
1990automate a large part of the Python bindings, this includes function
Daniel Veillard7b4b2f92003-01-06 13:11:20 +00001991descriptions, enums, structures, typedefs, etc... The Python script used to
1992build the bindings is python/generator.py in the source distribution.</p>
Daniel Veillard7ef0fcb2002-12-14 10:38:55 +00001993
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00001994<p>To install the Python bindings there are 2 options:</p>
Daniel Veillard0b79dfe2002-02-23 13:02:31 +00001995<ul>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00001996 <li>If you use an RPM based distribution, simply install the <a
1997 href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=libxml2-python">libxml2-python
1998 RPM</a> (and if needed the <a
1999 href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=libxslt-python">libxslt-python
2000 RPM</a>).</li>
2001 <li>Otherwise use the <a href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/python/">libxml2-python
2002 module distribution</a> corresponding to your installed version of
2003 libxml2 and libxslt. Note that to install it you will need both libxml2
2004 and libxslt installed and run "python setup.py build install" in the
2005 module tree.</li>
Daniel Veillard0b79dfe2002-02-23 13:02:31 +00002006</ul>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00002007
2008<p>The distribution includes a set of examples and regression tests for the
2009python bindings in the <code>python/tests</code> directory. Here are some
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002010excerpts from those tests:</p>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002011
2012<h3>tst.py:</h3>
2013
2014<p>This is a basic test of the file interface and DOM navigation:</p>
MST 2003 John Fleck2dffb762003-11-29 04:41:24 +00002015<pre>import libxml2, sys
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002016
2017doc = libxml2.parseFile("tst.xml")
2018if doc.name != "tst.xml":
2019 print "doc.name failed"
2020 sys.exit(1)
2021root = doc.children
2022if root.name != "doc":
2023 print "root.name failed"
2024 sys.exit(1)
2025child = root.children
2026if child.name != "foo":
2027 print "child.name failed"
2028 sys.exit(1)
2029doc.freeDoc()</pre>
2030
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002031<p>The Python module is called libxml2; parseFile is the equivalent of
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002032xmlParseFile (most of the bindings are automatically generated, and the xml
2033prefix is removed and the casing convention are kept). All node seen at the
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002034binding level share the same subset of accessors:</p>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002035<ul>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00002036 <li><code>name</code> : returns the node name</li>
Daniel Veillardc0801af2002-05-28 16:28:42 +00002037 <li><code>type</code> : returns a string indicating the node type</li>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00002038 <li><code>content</code> : returns the content of the node, it is based on
2039 xmlNodeGetContent() and hence is recursive.</li>
2040 <li><code>parent</code> , <code>children</code>, <code>last</code>,
2041 <code>next</code>, <code>prev</code>, <code>doc</code>,
2042 <code>properties</code>: pointing to the associated element in the tree,
2043 those may return None in case no such link exists.</li>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002044</ul>
2045
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002046<p>Also note the need to explicitly deallocate documents with freeDoc() .
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002047Reference counting for libxml2 trees would need quite a lot of work to
2048function properly, and rather than risk memory leaks if not implemented
2049correctly it sounds safer to have an explicit function to free a tree. The
2050wrapper python objects like doc, root or child are them automatically garbage
2051collected.</p>
2052
2053<h3>validate.py:</h3>
2054
2055<p>This test check the validation interfaces and redirection of error
2056messages:</p>
2057<pre>import libxml2
2058
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002059#deactivate error messages from the validation
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002060def noerr(ctx, str):
2061 pass
2062
2063libxml2.registerErrorHandler(noerr, None)
2064
2065ctxt = libxml2.createFileParserCtxt("invalid.xml")
2066ctxt.validate(1)
2067ctxt.parseDocument()
2068doc = ctxt.doc()
2069valid = ctxt.isValid()
2070doc.freeDoc()
2071if valid != 0:
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002072 print "validity check failed"</pre>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002073
2074<p>The first thing to notice is the call to registerErrorHandler(), it
2075defines a new error handler global to the library. It is used to avoid seeing
2076the error messages when trying to validate the invalid document.</p>
2077
2078<p>The main interest of that test is the creation of a parser context with
2079createFileParserCtxt() and how the behaviour can be changed before calling
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002080parseDocument() . Similarly the informations resulting from the parsing phase
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002081are also available using context methods.</p>
2082
2083<p>Contexts like nodes are defined as class and the libxml2 wrappers maps the
2084C function interfaces in terms of objects method as much as possible. The
2085best to get a complete view of what methods are supported is to look at the
2086libxml2.py module containing all the wrappers.</p>
2087
2088<h3>push.py:</h3>
2089
2090<p>This test show how to activate the push parser interface:</p>
2091<pre>import libxml2
2092
2093ctxt = libxml2.createPushParser(None, "&lt;foo", 4, "test.xml")
2094ctxt.parseChunk("/&gt;", 2, 1)
2095doc = ctxt.doc()
2096
2097doc.freeDoc()</pre>
2098
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002099<p>The context is created with a special call based on the
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002100xmlCreatePushParser() from the C library. The first argument is an optional
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002101SAX callback object, then the initial set of data, the length and the name of
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002102the resource in case URI-References need to be computed by the parser.</p>
2103
2104<p>Then the data are pushed using the parseChunk() method, the last call
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002105setting the third argument terminate to 1.</p>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002106
2107<h3>pushSAX.py:</h3>
2108
2109<p>this test show the use of the event based parsing interfaces. In this case
2110the parser does not build a document, but provides callback information as
2111the parser makes progresses analyzing the data being provided:</p>
2112<pre>import libxml2
2113log = ""
2114
2115class callback:
2116 def startDocument(self):
2117 global log
2118 log = log + "startDocument:"
2119
2120 def endDocument(self):
2121 global log
2122 log = log + "endDocument:"
2123
2124 def startElement(self, tag, attrs):
2125 global log
2126 log = log + "startElement %s %s:" % (tag, attrs)
2127
2128 def endElement(self, tag):
2129 global log
2130 log = log + "endElement %s:" % (tag)
2131
2132 def characters(self, data):
2133 global log
2134 log = log + "characters: %s:" % (data)
2135
2136 def warning(self, msg):
2137 global log
2138 log = log + "warning: %s:" % (msg)
2139
2140 def error(self, msg):
2141 global log
2142 log = log + "error: %s:" % (msg)
2143
2144 def fatalError(self, msg):
2145 global log
2146 log = log + "fatalError: %s:" % (msg)
2147
2148handler = callback()
2149
2150ctxt = libxml2.createPushParser(handler, "&lt;foo", 4, "test.xml")
2151chunk = " url='tst'&gt;b"
2152ctxt.parseChunk(chunk, len(chunk), 0)
2153chunk = "ar&lt;/foo&gt;"
2154ctxt.parseChunk(chunk, len(chunk), 1)
2155
Daniel Veillardfcbfa2d2002-02-21 17:54:27 +00002156reference = "startDocument:startElement foo {'url': 'tst'}:" + \
2157 "characters: bar:endElement foo:endDocument:"
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002158if log != reference:
2159 print "Error got: %s" % log
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002160 print "Expected: %s" % reference</pre>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002161
2162<p>The key object in that test is the handler, it provides a number of entry
2163points which can be called by the parser as it makes progresses to indicate
2164the information set obtained. The full set of callback is larger than what
2165the callback class in that specific example implements (see the SAX
2166definition for a complete list). The wrapper will only call those supplied by
2167the object when activated. The startElement receives the names of the element
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002168and a dictionary containing the attributes carried by this element.</p>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002169
2170<p>Also note that the reference string generated from the callback shows a
2171single character call even though the string "bar" is passed to the parser
2172from 2 different call to parseChunk()</p>
2173
2174<h3>xpath.py:</h3>
2175
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002176<p>This is a basic test of XPath wrappers support</p>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002177<pre>import libxml2
2178
2179doc = libxml2.parseFile("tst.xml")
2180ctxt = doc.xpathNewContext()
2181res = ctxt.xpathEval("//*")
2182if len(res) != 2:
2183 print "xpath query: wrong node set size"
2184 sys.exit(1)
2185if res[0].name != "doc" or res[1].name != "foo":
2186 print "xpath query: wrong node set value"
2187 sys.exit(1)
2188doc.freeDoc()
2189ctxt.xpathFreeContext()</pre>
2190
2191<p>This test parses a file, then create an XPath context to evaluate XPath
2192expression on it. The xpathEval() method execute an XPath query and returns
2193the result mapped in a Python way. String and numbers are natively converted,
2194and node sets are returned as a tuple of libxml2 Python nodes wrappers. Like
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002195the document, the XPath context need to be freed explicitly, also not that
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002196the result of the XPath query may point back to the document tree and hence
2197the document must be freed after the result of the query is used.</p>
2198
2199<h3>xpathext.py:</h3>
2200
2201<p>This test shows how to extend the XPath engine with functions written in
2202python:</p>
2203<pre>import libxml2
2204
2205def foo(ctx, x):
2206 return x + 1
2207
2208doc = libxml2.parseFile("tst.xml")
2209ctxt = doc.xpathNewContext()
2210libxml2.registerXPathFunction(ctxt._o, "foo", None, foo)
2211res = ctxt.xpathEval("foo(1)")
2212if res != 2:
2213 print "xpath extension failure"
2214doc.freeDoc()
2215ctxt.xpathFreeContext()</pre>
2216
2217<p>Note how the extension function is registered with the context (but that
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002218part is not yet finalized, this may change slightly in the future).</p>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002219
2220<h3>tstxpath.py:</h3>
2221
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002222<p>This test is similar to the previous one but shows how the extension
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002223function can access the XPath evaluation context:</p>
2224<pre>def foo(ctx, x):
2225 global called
2226
2227 #
2228 # test that access to the XPath evaluation contexts
2229 #
2230 pctxt = libxml2.xpathParserContext(_obj=ctx)
2231 ctxt = pctxt.context()
2232 called = ctxt.function()
2233 return x + 1</pre>
2234
2235<p>All the interfaces around the XPath parser(or rather evaluation) context
2236are not finalized, but it should be sufficient to do contextual work at the
2237evaluation point.</p>
2238
2239<h3>Memory debugging:</h3>
2240
2241<p>last but not least, all tests starts with the following prologue:</p>
2242<pre>#memory debug specific
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00002243libxml2.debugMemory(1)</pre>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002244
2245<p>and ends with the following epilogue:</p>
2246<pre>#memory debug specific
2247libxml2.cleanupParser()
2248if libxml2.debugMemory(1) == 0:
2249 print "OK"
2250else:
2251 print "Memory leak %d bytes" % (libxml2.debugMemory(1))
2252 libxml2.dumpMemory()</pre>
2253
2254<p>Those activate the memory debugging interface of libxml2 where all
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002255allocated block in the library are tracked. The prologue then cleans up the
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +00002256library state and checks that all allocated memory has been freed. If not it
2257calls dumpMemory() which saves that list in a <code>.memdump</code> file.</p>
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +00002258
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002259<h2><a name="architecture">libxml2 architecture</a></h2>
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +00002260
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +00002261<p>Libxml2 is made of multiple components; some of them are optional, and
2262most of the block interfaces are public. The main components are:</p>
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +00002263<ul>
2264 <li>an Input/Output layer</li>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00002265 <li>FTP and HTTP client layers (optional)</li>
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +00002266 <li>an Internationalization layer managing the encodings support</li>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00002267 <li>a URI module</li>
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +00002268 <li>the XML parser and its basic SAX interface</li>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00002269 <li>an HTML parser using the same SAX interface (optional)</li>
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +00002270 <li>a SAX tree module to build an in-memory DOM representation</li>
2271 <li>a tree module to manipulate the DOM representation</li>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00002272 <li>a validation module using the DOM representation (optional)</li>
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +00002273 <li>an XPath module for global lookup in a DOM representation
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00002274 (optional)</li>
2275 <li>a debug module (optional)</li>
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +00002276</ul>
2277
2278<p>Graphically this gives the following:</p>
2279
2280<p><img src="libxml.gif" alt="a graphical view of the various"></p>
2281
2282<p></p>
2283
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00002284<h2><a name="tree">The tree output</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00002285
2286<p>The parser returns a tree built during the document analysis. The value
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +00002287returned is an <strong>xmlDocPtr</strong> (i.e., a pointer to an
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00002288<strong>xmlDoc</strong> structure). This structure contains information such
Daniel Veillard306be992000-07-03 12:38:45 +00002289as the file name, the document type, and a <strong>children</strong> pointer
2290which is the root of the document (or more exactly the first child under the
2291root which is the document). The tree is made of <strong>xmlNode</strong>s,
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00002292chained in double-linked lists of siblings and with a children&lt;-&gt;parent
Daniel Veillard306be992000-07-03 12:38:45 +00002293relationship. An xmlNode can also carry properties (a chain of xmlAttr
2294structures). An attribute may have a value which is a list of TEXT or
2295ENTITY_REF nodes.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00002296
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00002297<p>Here is an example (erroneous with respect to the XML spec since there
2298should be only one ELEMENT under the root):</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00002299
2300<p><img src="structure.gif" alt=" structure.gif "></p>
2301
2302<p>In the source package there is a small program (not installed by default)
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +00002303called <strong>xmllint</strong> which parses XML files given as argument and
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00002304prints them back as parsed. This is useful for detecting errors both in XML
2305code and in the XML parser itself. It has an option <strong>--debug</strong>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00002306which prints the actual in-memory structure of the document; here is the
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00002307result with the <a href="#example">example</a> given before:</p>
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +00002308<pre>DOCUMENT
2309version=1.0
2310standalone=true
2311 ELEMENT EXAMPLE
2312 ATTRIBUTE prop1
2313 TEXT
2314 content=gnome is great
2315 ATTRIBUTE prop2
2316 ENTITY_REF
2317 TEXT
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +00002318 content= linux too
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +00002319 ELEMENT head
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +00002320 ELEMENT title
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00002321 TEXT
2322 content=Welcome to Gnome
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +00002323 ELEMENT chapter
2324 ELEMENT title
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00002325 TEXT
2326 content=The Linux adventure
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +00002327 ELEMENT p
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00002328 TEXT
2329 content=bla bla bla ...
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +00002330 ELEMENT image
2331 ATTRIBUTE href
2332 TEXT
2333 content=linus.gif
2334 ELEMENT p
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00002335 TEXT
2336 content=...</pre>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00002337
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00002338<p>This should be useful for learning the internal representation model.</p>
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +00002339
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00002340<h2><a name="interface">The SAX interface</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00002341
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +00002342<p>Sometimes the DOM tree output is just too large to fit reasonably into
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00002343memory. In that case (and if you don't expect to save back the XML document
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00002344loaded using libxml), it's better to use the SAX interface of libxml. SAX is
2345a <strong>callback-based interface</strong> to the parser. Before parsing,
2346the application layer registers a customized set of callbacks which are
2347called by the library as it progresses through the XML input.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00002348
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00002349<p>To get more detailed step-by-step guidance on using the SAX interface of
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +00002350libxml, see the <a
2351href="http://www.daa.com.au/~james/gnome/xml-sax/xml-sax.html">nice
2352documentation</a>.written by <a href="mailto:james@daa.com.au">James
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00002353Henstridge</a>.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00002354
2355<p>You can debug the SAX behaviour by using the <strong>testSAX</strong>
2356program located in the gnome-xml module (it's usually not shipped in the
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00002357binary packages of libxml, but you can find it in the tar source
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +00002358distribution). Here is the sequence of callbacks that would be reported by
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00002359testSAX when parsing the example XML document shown earlier:</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00002360<pre>SAX.setDocumentLocator()
2361SAX.startDocument()
2362SAX.getEntity(amp)
2363SAX.startElement(EXAMPLE, prop1='gnome is great', prop2='&amp;amp; linux too')
2364SAX.characters( , 3)
2365SAX.startElement(head)
2366SAX.characters( , 4)
2367SAX.startElement(title)
2368SAX.characters(Welcome to Gnome, 16)
2369SAX.endElement(title)
2370SAX.characters( , 3)
2371SAX.endElement(head)
2372SAX.characters( , 3)
2373SAX.startElement(chapter)
2374SAX.characters( , 4)
2375SAX.startElement(title)
2376SAX.characters(The Linux adventure, 19)
2377SAX.endElement(title)
2378SAX.characters( , 4)
2379SAX.startElement(p)
2380SAX.characters(bla bla bla ..., 15)
2381SAX.endElement(p)
2382SAX.characters( , 4)
2383SAX.startElement(image, href='linus.gif')
2384SAX.endElement(image)
2385SAX.characters( , 4)
2386SAX.startElement(p)
2387SAX.characters(..., 3)
2388SAX.endElement(p)
2389SAX.characters( , 3)
2390SAX.endElement(chapter)
2391SAX.characters( , 1)
2392SAX.endElement(EXAMPLE)
2393SAX.endDocument()</pre>
2394
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002395<p>Most of the other interfaces of libxml2 are based on the DOM tree-building
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +00002396facility, so nearly everything up to the end of this document presupposes the
2397use of the standard DOM tree build. Note that the DOM tree itself is built by
2398a set of registered default callbacks, without internal specific
2399interface.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00002400
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002401<h2><a name="Validation">Validation &amp; DTDs</a></h2>
2402
2403<p>Table of Content:</p>
2404<ol>
2405 <li><a href="#General5">General overview</a></li>
2406 <li><a href="#definition">The definition</a></li>
2407 <li><a href="#Simple">Simple rules</a>
2408 <ol>
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +00002409 <li><a href="#reference">How to reference a DTD from a document</a></li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002410 <li><a href="#Declaring">Declaring elements</a></li>
2411 <li><a href="#Declaring1">Declaring attributes</a></li>
2412 </ol>
2413 </li>
2414 <li><a href="#Some">Some examples</a></li>
2415 <li><a href="#validate">How to validate</a></li>
2416 <li><a href="#Other">Other resources</a></li>
2417</ol>
2418
2419<h3><a name="General5">General overview</a></h3>
2420
2421<p>Well what is validation and what is a DTD ?</p>
2422
2423<p>DTD is the acronym for Document Type Definition. This is a description of
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002424the content for a family of XML files. This is part of the XML 1.0
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002425specification, and allows one to describe and verify that a given document
2426instance conforms to the set of rules detailing its structure and content.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002427
2428<p>Validation is the process of checking a document against a DTD (more
2429generally against a set of construction rules).</p>
2430
2431<p>The validation process and building DTDs are the two most difficult parts
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002432of the XML life cycle. Briefly a DTD defines all the possible elements to be
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002433found within your document, what is the formal shape of your document tree
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002434(by defining the allowed content of an element; either text, a regular
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002435expression for the allowed list of children, or mixed content i.e. both text
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +00002436and children). The DTD also defines the valid attributes for all elements and
2437the types of those attributes.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002438
2439<h3><a name="definition1">The definition</a></h3>
2440
2441<p>The <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml">W3C XML Recommendation</a> (<a
2442href="http://www.xml.com/axml/axml.html">Tim Bray's annotated version of
2443Rev1</a>):</p>
2444<ul>
2445 <li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#elemdecls">Declaring
2446 elements</a></li>
2447 <li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#attdecls">Declaring
2448 attributes</a></li>
2449</ul>
2450
2451<p>(unfortunately) all this is inherited from the SGML world, the syntax is
2452ancient...</p>
2453
2454<h3><a name="Simple1">Simple rules</a></h3>
2455
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +00002456<p>Writing DTDs can be done in many ways. The rules to build them if you need
2457something permanent or something which can evolve over time can be radically
2458different. Really complex DTDs like DocBook ones are flexible but quite
2459harder to design. I will just focus on DTDs for a formats with a fixed simple
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002460structure. It is just a set of basic rules, and definitely not exhaustive nor
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002461usable for complex DTD design.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002462
2463<h4><a name="reference1">How to reference a DTD from a document</a>:</h4>
2464
2465<p>Assuming the top element of the document is <code>spec</code> and the dtd
2466is placed in the file <code>mydtd</code> in the subdirectory
2467<code>dtds</code> of the directory from where the document were loaded:</p>
2468
2469<p><code>&lt;!DOCTYPE spec SYSTEM "dtds/mydtd"&gt;</code></p>
2470
2471<p>Notes:</p>
2472<ul>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002473 <li>The system string is actually an URI-Reference (as defined in <a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002474 href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt">RFC 2396</a>) so you can use a
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002475 full URL string indicating the location of your DTD on the Web. This is a
2476 really good thing to do if you want others to validate your document.</li>
2477 <li>It is also possible to associate a <code>PUBLIC</code> identifier (a
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002478 magic string) so that the DTD is looked up in catalogs on the client side
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002479 without having to locate it on the web.</li>
2480 <li>A DTD contains a set of element and attribute declarations, but they
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002481 don't define what the root of the document should be. This is explicitly
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002482 told to the parser/validator as the first element of the
2483 <code>DOCTYPE</code> declaration.</li>
2484</ul>
2485
2486<h4><a name="Declaring2">Declaring elements</a>:</h4>
2487
2488<p>The following declares an element <code>spec</code>:</p>
2489
2490<p><code>&lt;!ELEMENT spec (front, body, back?)&gt;</code></p>
2491
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002492<p>It also expresses that the spec element contains one <code>front</code>,
Daniel Veillardc0801af2002-05-28 16:28:42 +00002493one <code>body</code> and one optional <code>back</code> children elements in
2494this order. The declaration of one element of the structure and its content
2495are done in a single declaration. Similarly the following declares
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002496<code>div1</code> elements:</p>
2497
Daniel Veillard51737272002-01-23 23:10:38 +00002498<p><code>&lt;!ELEMENT div1 (head, (p | list | note)*, div2?)&gt;</code></p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002499
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002500<p>which means div1 contains one <code>head</code> then a series of optional
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002501<code>p</code>, <code>list</code>s and <code>note</code>s and then an
2502optional <code>div2</code>. And last but not least an element can contain
2503text:</p>
2504
2505<p><code>&lt;!ELEMENT b (#PCDATA)&gt;</code></p>
2506
2507<p><code>b</code> contains text or being of mixed content (text and elements
2508in no particular order):</p>
2509
2510<p><code>&lt;!ELEMENT p (#PCDATA|a|ul|b|i|em)*&gt;</code></p>
2511
2512<p><code>p </code>can contain text or <code>a</code>, <code>ul</code>,
2513<code>b</code>, <code>i </code>or <code>em</code> elements in no particular
2514order.</p>
2515
2516<h4><a name="Declaring1">Declaring attributes</a>:</h4>
2517
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002518<p>Again the attributes declaration includes their content definition:</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002519
2520<p><code>&lt;!ATTLIST termdef name CDATA #IMPLIED&gt;</code></p>
2521
2522<p>means that the element <code>termdef</code> can have a <code>name</code>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002523attribute containing text (<code>CDATA</code>) and which is optional
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002524(<code>#IMPLIED</code>). The attribute value can also be defined within a
2525set:</p>
2526
2527<p><code>&lt;!ATTLIST list type (bullets|ordered|glossary)
2528"ordered"&gt;</code></p>
2529
2530<p>means <code>list</code> element have a <code>type</code> attribute with 3
2531allowed values "bullets", "ordered" or "glossary" and which default to
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002532"ordered" if the attribute is not explicitly specified.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002533
2534<p>The content type of an attribute can be text (<code>CDATA</code>),
2535anchor/reference/references
2536(<code>ID</code>/<code>IDREF</code>/<code>IDREFS</code>), entity(ies)
2537(<code>ENTITY</code>/<code>ENTITIES</code>) or name(s)
2538(<code>NMTOKEN</code>/<code>NMTOKENS</code>). The following defines that a
2539<code>chapter</code> element can have an optional <code>id</code> attribute
2540of type <code>ID</code>, usable for reference from attribute of type
2541IDREF:</p>
2542
2543<p><code>&lt;!ATTLIST chapter id ID #IMPLIED&gt;</code></p>
2544
2545<p>The last value of an attribute definition can be <code>#REQUIRED
2546</code>meaning that the attribute has to be given, <code>#IMPLIED</code>
2547meaning that it is optional, or the default value (possibly prefixed by
2548<code>#FIXED</code> if it is the only allowed).</p>
2549
2550<p>Notes:</p>
2551<ul>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002552 <li>Usually the attributes pertaining to a given element are declared in a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002553 single expression, but it is just a convention adopted by a lot of DTD
2554 writers:
2555 <pre>&lt;!ATTLIST termdef
2556 id ID #REQUIRED
2557 name CDATA #IMPLIED&gt;</pre>
2558 <p>The previous construct defines both <code>id</code> and
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002559 <code>name</code> attributes for the element <code>termdef</code>.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002560 </li>
2561</ul>
2562
2563<h3><a name="Some1">Some examples</a></h3>
2564
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002565<p>The directory <code>test/valid/dtds/</code> in the libxml2 distribution
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +00002566contains some complex DTD examples. The example in the file
2567<code>test/valid/dia.xml</code> shows an XML file where the simple DTD is
2568directly included within the document.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002569
2570<h3><a name="validate1">How to validate</a></h3>
2571
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002572<p>The simplest way is to use the xmllint program included with libxml. The
2573<code>--valid</code> option turns-on validation of the files given as input.
2574For example the following validates a copy of the first revision of the XML
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +000025751.0 specification:</p>
2576
2577<p><code>xmllint --valid --noout test/valid/REC-xml-19980210.xml</code></p>
2578
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +00002579<p>the -- noout is used to disable output of the resulting tree.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002580
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +00002581<p>The <code>--dtdvalid dtd</code> allows validation of the document(s)
2582against a given DTD.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002583
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002584<p>Libxml2 exports an API to handle DTDs and validation, check the <a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002585href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-valid.html">associated
2586description</a>.</p>
2587
2588<h3><a name="Other1">Other resources</a></h3>
2589
2590<p>DTDs are as old as SGML. So there may be a number of examples on-line, I
2591will just list one for now, others pointers welcome:</p>
2592<ul>
2593 <li><a href="http://www.xml101.com:8081/dtd/">XML-101 DTD</a></li>
2594</ul>
2595
2596<p>I suggest looking at the examples found under test/valid/dtd and any of
2597the large number of books available on XML. The dia example in test/valid
2598should be both simple and complete enough to allow you to build your own.</p>
2599
2600<p></p>
2601
2602<h2><a name="Memory">Memory Management</a></h2>
2603
2604<p>Table of Content:</p>
2605<ol>
2606 <li><a href="#General3">General overview</a></li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002607 <li><a href="#setting">Setting libxml2 set of memory routines</a></li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002608 <li><a href="#cleanup">Cleaning up after parsing</a></li>
2609 <li><a href="#Debugging">Debugging routines</a></li>
2610 <li><a href="#General4">General memory requirements</a></li>
2611</ol>
2612
2613<h3><a name="General3">General overview</a></h3>
2614
2615<p>The module <code><a
2616href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-xmlmemory.html">xmlmemory.h</a></code>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002617provides the interfaces to the libxml2 memory system:</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002618<ul>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002619 <li>libxml2 does not use the libc memory allocator directly but xmlFree(),
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002620 xmlMalloc() and xmlRealloc()</li>
2621 <li>those routines can be reallocated to a specific set of routine, by
2622 default the libc ones i.e. free(), malloc() and realloc()</li>
2623 <li>the xmlmemory.c module includes a set of debugging routine</li>
2624</ul>
2625
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002626<h3><a name="setting">Setting libxml2 set of memory routines</a></h3>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002627
2628<p>It is sometimes useful to not use the default memory allocator, either for
2629debugging, analysis or to implement a specific behaviour on memory management
2630(like on embedded systems). Two function calls are available to do so:</p>
2631<ul>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00002632 <li><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-xmlmemory.html">xmlMemGet
2633 ()</a> which return the current set of functions in use by the parser</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002634 <li><a
2635 href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-xmlmemory.html">xmlMemSetup()</a>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00002636 which allow to set up a new set of memory allocation functions</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002637</ul>
2638
2639<p>Of course a call to xmlMemSetup() should probably be done before calling
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002640any other libxml2 routines (unless you are sure your allocations routines are
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002641compatibles).</p>
2642
2643<h3><a name="cleanup">Cleaning up after parsing</a></h3>
2644
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002645<p>Libxml2 is not stateless, there is a few set of memory structures needing
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002646allocation before the parser is fully functional (some encoding structures
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002647for example). This also mean that once parsing is finished there is a tiny
2648amount of memory (a few hundred bytes) which can be recollected if you don't
2649reuse the parser immediately:</p>
2650<ul>
2651 <li><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-parser.html">xmlCleanupParser
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00002652 ()</a> is a centralized routine to free the parsing states. Note that it
2653 won't deallocate any produced tree if any (use the xmlFreeDoc() and
2654 related routines for this).</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002655 <li><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-parser.html">xmlInitParser
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00002656 ()</a> is the dual routine allowing to preallocate the parsing state
2657 which can be useful for example to avoid initialization reentrancy
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002658 problems when using libxml2 in multithreaded applications</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002659</ul>
2660
2661<p>Generally xmlCleanupParser() is safe, if needed the state will be rebuild
2662at the next invocation of parser routines, but be careful of the consequences
2663in multithreaded applications.</p>
2664
2665<h3><a name="Debugging">Debugging routines</a></h3>
2666
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002667<p>When configured using --with-mem-debug flag (off by default), libxml2 uses
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002668a set of memory allocation debugging routines keeping track of all allocated
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002669blocks and the location in the code where the routine was called. A couple of
2670other debugging routines allow to dump the memory allocated infos to a file
2671or call a specific routine when a given block number is allocated:</p>
2672<ul>
2673 <li><a
2674 href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-xmlmemory.html">xmlMallocLoc()</a>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00002675 <a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002676 href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-xmlmemory.html">xmlReallocLoc()</a>
2677 and <a
2678 href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-xmlmemory.html">xmlMemStrdupLoc()</a>
2679 are the memory debugging replacement allocation routines</li>
2680 <li><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-xmlmemory.html">xmlMemoryDump
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00002681 ()</a> dumps all the informations about the allocated memory block lefts
2682 in the <code>.memdump</code> file</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002683</ul>
2684
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002685<p>When developing libxml2 memory debug is enabled, the tests programs call
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002686xmlMemoryDump () and the "make test" regression tests will check for any
2687memory leak during the full regression test sequence, this helps a lot
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002688ensuring that libxml2 does not leak memory and bullet proof memory
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002689allocations use (some libc implementations are known to be far too permissive
2690resulting in major portability problems!).</p>
2691
2692<p>If the .memdump reports a leak, it displays the allocation function and
2693also tries to give some informations about the content and structure of the
2694allocated blocks left. This is sufficient in most cases to find the culprit,
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002695but not always. Assuming the allocation problem is reproducible, it is
2696possible to find more easily:</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002697<ol>
2698 <li>write down the block number xxxx not allocated</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002699 <li>export the environment variable XML_MEM_BREAKPOINT=xxxx , the easiest
Daniel Veillard75794822002-04-11 16:24:32 +00002700 when using GDB is to simply give the command
2701 <p><code>set environment XML_MEM_BREAKPOINT xxxx</code></p>
2702 <p>before running the program.</p>
2703 </li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002704 <li>run the program under a debugger and set a breakpoint on
2705 xmlMallocBreakpoint() a specific function called when this precise block
2706 is allocated</li>
2707 <li>when the breakpoint is reached you can then do a fine analysis of the
2708 allocation an step to see the condition resulting in the missing
2709 deallocation.</li>
2710</ol>
2711
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002712<p>I used to use a commercial tool to debug libxml2 memory problems but after
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002713noticing that it was not detecting memory leaks that simple mechanism was
Daniel Veillard75794822002-04-11 16:24:32 +00002714used and proved extremely efficient until now. Lately I have also used <a
2715href="http://developer.kde.org/~sewardj/">valgrind</a> with quite some
2716success, it is tied to the i386 architecture since it works by emulating the
2717processor and instruction set, it is slow but extremely efficient, i.e. it
2718spot memory usage errors in a very precise way.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002719
2720<h3><a name="General4">General memory requirements</a></h3>
2721
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002722<p>How much libxml2 memory require ? It's hard to tell in average it depends
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002723of a number of things:</p>
2724<ul>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002725 <li>the parser itself should work in a fixed amount of memory, except for
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002726 information maintained about the stacks of names and entities locations.
2727 The I/O and encoding handlers will probably account for a few KBytes.
2728 This is true for both the XML and HTML parser (though the HTML parser
2729 need more state).</li>
2730 <li>If you are generating the DOM tree then memory requirements will grow
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002731 nearly linear with the size of the data. In general for a balanced
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002732 textual document the internal memory requirement is about 4 times the
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002733 size of the UTF8 serialization of this document (example the XML-1.0
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002734 recommendation is a bit more of 150KBytes and takes 650KBytes of main
2735 memory when parsed). Validation will add a amount of memory required for
2736 maintaining the external Dtd state which should be linear with the
2737 complexity of the content model defined by the Dtd</li>
Daniel Veillardce192eb2003-04-16 15:58:05 +00002738 <li>If you need to work with fixed memory requirements or don't need the
2739 full DOM tree then using the <a href="xmlreader.html">xmlReader
2740 interface</a> is probably the best way to proceed, it still allows to
2741 validate or operate on subset of the tree if needed.</li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002742 <li>If you don't care about the advanced features of libxml2 like
Daniel Veillardce192eb2003-04-16 15:58:05 +00002743 validation, DOM, XPath or XPointer, don't use entities, need to work with
2744 fixed memory requirements, and try to get the fastest parsing possible
2745 then the SAX interface should be used, but it has known restrictions.</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002746</ul>
2747
2748<p></p>
2749
2750<h2><a name="Encodings">Encodings support</a></h2>
2751
2752<p>Table of Content:</p>
2753<ol>
2754 <li><a href="encoding.html#What">What does internationalization support
2755 mean ?</a></li>
2756 <li><a href="encoding.html#internal">The internal encoding, how and
2757 why</a></li>
2758 <li><a href="encoding.html#implemente">How is it implemented ?</a></li>
2759 <li><a href="encoding.html#Default">Default supported encodings</a></li>
2760 <li><a href="encoding.html#extend">How to extend the existing
2761 support</a></li>
2762</ol>
2763
2764<h3><a name="What">What does internationalization support mean ?</a></h3>
2765
Daniel Veillarde6e59cd2003-12-24 11:56:44 +00002766<p>If you are not really familiar with Internationalization (usual shortcut
2767is I18N) , Unicode, characters and glyphs, I suggest you read a <a
Daniel Veillard238836e2003-04-07 22:57:29 +00002768href="http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/04/06/Unicode">presentation</a>
2769by Tim Bray on Unicode and why you should care about it.</p>
2770
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002771<p>XML was designed from the start to allow the support of any character set
2772by using Unicode. Any conformant XML parser has to support the UTF-8 and
2773UTF-16 default encodings which can both express the full unicode ranges. UTF8
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002774is a variable length encoding whose greatest points are to reuse the same
2775encoding for ASCII and to save space for Western encodings, but it is a bit
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002776more complex to handle in practice. UTF-16 use 2 bytes per characters (and
2777sometimes combines two pairs), it makes implementation easier, but looks a
2778bit overkill for Western languages encoding. Moreover the XML specification
2779allows document to be encoded in other encodings at the condition that they
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002780are clearly labeled as such. For example the following is a wellformed XML
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002781document encoded in ISO-8859 1 and using accentuated letter that we French
2782likes for both markup and content:</p>
2783<pre>&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?&gt;
2784&lt;très&gt;là&lt;/très&gt;</pre>
2785
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002786<p>Having internationalization support in libxml2 means the following:</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002787<ul>
2788 <li>the document is properly parsed</li>
2789 <li>informations about it's encoding are saved</li>
2790 <li>it can be modified</li>
2791 <li>it can be saved in its original encoding</li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002792 <li>it can also be saved in another encoding supported by libxml2 (for
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002793 example straight UTF8 or even an ASCII form)</li>
2794</ul>
2795
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002796<p>Another very important point is that the whole libxml2 API, with the
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002797exception of a few routines to read with a specific encoding or save to a
2798specific encoding, is completely agnostic about the original encoding of the
2799document.</p>
2800
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002801<p>It should be noted too that the HTML parser embedded in libxml2 now obey
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002802the same rules too, the following document will be (as of 2.2.2) handled in
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002803an internationalized fashion by libxml2 too:</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002804<pre>&lt;!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"
2805 "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"&gt;
2806&lt;html lang="fr"&gt;
2807&lt;head&gt;
2808 &lt;META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"&gt;
2809&lt;/head&gt;
2810&lt;body&gt;
2811&lt;p&gt;W3C crée des standards pour le Web.&lt;/body&gt;
2812&lt;/html&gt;</pre>
2813
2814<h3><a name="internal">The internal encoding, how and why</a></h3>
2815
2816<p>One of the core decision was to force all documents to be converted to a
2817default internal encoding, and that encoding to be UTF-8, here are the
2818rationale for those choices:</p>
2819<ul>
2820 <li>keeping the native encoding in the internal form would force the libxml
2821 users (or the code associated) to be fully aware of the encoding of the
2822 original document, for examples when adding a text node to a document,
2823 the content would have to be provided in the document encoding, i.e. the
2824 client code would have to check it before hand, make sure it's conformant
2825 to the encoding, etc ... Very hard in practice, though in some specific
2826 cases this may make sense.</li>
2827 <li>the second decision was which encoding. From the XML spec only UTF8 and
2828 UTF16 really makes sense as being the two only encodings for which there
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002829 is mandatory support. UCS-4 (32 bits fixed size encoding) could be
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002830 considered an intelligent choice too since it's a direct Unicode mapping
2831 support. I selected UTF-8 on the basis of efficiency and compatibility
2832 with surrounding software:
2833 <ul>
2834 <li>UTF-8 while a bit more complex to convert from/to (i.e. slightly
2835 more costly to import and export CPU wise) is also far more compact
2836 than UTF-16 (and UCS-4) for a majority of the documents I see it used
2837 for right now (RPM RDF catalogs, advogato data, various configuration
2838 file formats, etc.) and the key point for today's computer
2839 architecture is efficient uses of caches. If one nearly double the
2840 memory requirement to store the same amount of data, this will trash
2841 caches (main memory/external caches/internal caches) and my take is
2842 that this harms the system far more than the CPU requirements needed
2843 for the conversion to UTF-8</li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002844 <li>Most of libxml2 version 1 users were using it with straight ASCII
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002845 most of the time, doing the conversion with an internal encoding
2846 requiring all their code to be rewritten was a serious show-stopper
2847 for using UTF-16 or UCS-4.</li>
2848 <li>UTF-8 is being used as the de-facto internal encoding standard for
2849 related code like the <a href="http://www.pango.org/">pango</a>
2850 upcoming Gnome text widget, and a lot of Unix code (yep another place
2851 where Unix programmer base takes a different approach from Microsoft
2852 - they are using UTF-16)</li>
2853 </ul>
2854 </li>
2855</ul>
2856
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002857<p>What does this mean in practice for the libxml2 user:</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002858<ul>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002859 <li>xmlChar, the libxml2 data type is a byte, those bytes must be assembled
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002860 as UTF-8 valid strings. The proper way to terminate an xmlChar * string
2861 is simply to append 0 byte, as usual.</li>
2862 <li>One just need to make sure that when using chars outside the ASCII set,
2863 the values has been properly converted to UTF-8</li>
2864</ul>
2865
2866<h3><a name="implemente">How is it implemented ?</a></h3>
2867
2868<p>Let's describe how all this works within libxml, basically the I18N
2869(internationalization) support get triggered only during I/O operation, i.e.
2870when reading a document or saving one. Let's look first at the reading
2871sequence:</p>
2872<ol>
2873 <li>when a document is processed, we usually don't know the encoding, a
Daniel Veillard7b68df92003-08-03 22:58:54 +00002874 simple heuristic allows to detect UTF-16 and UCS-4 from whose where the
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002875 ASCII range (0-0x7F) maps with ASCII</li>
2876 <li>the xml declaration if available is parsed, including the encoding
2877 declaration. At that point, if the autodetected encoding is different
2878 from the one declared a call to xmlSwitchEncoding() is issued.</li>
2879 <li>If there is no encoding declaration, then the input has to be in either
2880 UTF-8 or UTF-16, if it is not then at some point when processing the
2881 input, the converter/checker of UTF-8 form will raise an encoding error.
2882 You may end-up with a garbled document, or no document at all ! Example:
2883 <pre>~/XML -&gt; ./xmllint err.xml
2884err.xml:1: error: Input is not proper UTF-8, indicate encoding !
2885&lt;très&gt;là&lt;/très&gt;
2886 ^
2887err.xml:1: error: Bytes: 0xE8 0x73 0x3E 0x6C
2888&lt;très&gt;là&lt;/très&gt;
2889 ^</pre>
2890 </li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002891 <li>xmlSwitchEncoding() does an encoding name lookup, canonicalize it, and
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002892 then search the default registered encoding converters for that encoding.
2893 If it's not within the default set and iconv() support has been compiled
2894 it, it will ask iconv for such an encoder. If this fails then the parser
2895 will report an error and stops processing:
2896 <pre>~/XML -&gt; ./xmllint err2.xml
2897err2.xml:1: error: Unsupported encoding UnsupportedEnc
2898&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UnsupportedEnc"?&gt;
2899 ^</pre>
2900 </li>
Daniel Veillard46c5c1d2002-05-20 07:15:54 +00002901 <li>From that point the encoder processes progressively the input (it is
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002902 plugged as a front-end to the I/O module) for that entity. It captures
2903 and convert on-the-fly the document to be parsed to UTF-8. The parser
2904 itself just does UTF-8 checking of this input and process it
2905 transparently. The only difference is that the encoding information has
2906 been added to the parsing context (more precisely to the input
2907 corresponding to this entity).</li>
2908 <li>The result (when using DOM) is an internal form completely in UTF-8
2909 with just an encoding information on the document node.</li>
2910</ol>
2911
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002912<p>Ok then what happens when saving the document (assuming you
2913collected/built an xmlDoc DOM like structure) ? It depends on the function
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002914called, xmlSaveFile() will just try to save in the original encoding, while
2915xmlSaveFileTo() and xmlSaveFileEnc() can optionally save to a given
2916encoding:</p>
2917<ol>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002918 <li>if no encoding is given, libxml2 will look for an encoding value
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002919 associated to the document and if it exists will try to save to that
2920 encoding,
2921 <p>otherwise everything is written in the internal form, i.e. UTF-8</p>
2922 </li>
2923 <li>so if an encoding was specified, either at the API level or on the
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002924 document, libxml2 will again canonicalize the encoding name, lookup for a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002925 converter in the registered set or through iconv. If not found the
2926 function will return an error code</li>
2927 <li>the converter is placed before the I/O buffer layer, as another kind of
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002928 buffer, then libxml2 will simply push the UTF-8 serialization to through
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002929 that buffer, which will then progressively be converted and pushed onto
2930 the I/O layer.</li>
2931 <li>It is possible that the converter code fails on some input, for example
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002932 trying to push an UTF-8 encoded Chinese character through the UTF-8 to
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002933 ISO-8859-1 converter won't work. Since the encoders are progressive they
2934 will just report the error and the number of bytes converted, at that
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002935 point libxml2 will decode the offending character, remove it from the
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002936 buffer and replace it with the associated charRef encoding &amp;#123; and
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002937 resume the conversion. This guarantees that any document will be saved
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002938 without losses (except for markup names where this is not legal, this is
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00002939 a problem in the current version, in practice avoid using non-ascii
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002940 characters for tags or attributes names @@). A special "ascii" encoding
2941 name is used to save documents to a pure ascii form can be used when
2942 portability is really crucial</li>
2943</ol>
2944
2945<p>Here is a few examples based on the same test document:</p>
2946<pre>~/XML -&gt; ./xmllint isolat1
2947&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?&gt;
2948&lt;très&gt;là&lt;/très&gt;
2949~/XML -&gt; ./xmllint --encode UTF-8 isolat1
2950&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
2951&lt;très&gt;là  &lt;/très&gt;
2952~/XML -&gt; </pre>
2953
2954<p>The same processing is applied (and reuse most of the code) for HTML I18N
2955processing. Looking up and modifying the content encoding is a bit more
2956difficult since it is located in a &lt;meta&gt; tag under the &lt;head&gt;,
2957so a couple of functions htmlGetMetaEncoding() and htmlSetMetaEncoding() have
2958been provided. The parser also attempts to switch encoding on the fly when
2959detecting such a tag on input. Except for that the processing is the same
2960(and again reuses the same code).</p>
2961
2962<h3><a name="Default">Default supported encodings</a></h3>
2963
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002964<p>libxml2 has a set of default converters for the following encodings
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002965(located in encoding.c):</p>
2966<ol>
2967 <li>UTF-8 is supported by default (null handlers)</li>
2968 <li>UTF-16, both little and big endian</li>
2969 <li>ISO-Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1) covering most western languages</li>
2970 <li>ASCII, useful mostly for saving</li>
2971 <li>HTML, a specific handler for the conversion of UTF-8 to ASCII with HTML
2972 predefined entities like &amp;copy; for the Copyright sign.</li>
2973</ol>
2974
Daniel Veillardc0801af2002-05-28 16:28:42 +00002975<p>More over when compiled on an Unix platform with iconv support the full
2976set of encodings supported by iconv can be instantly be used by libxml. On a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002977linux machine with glibc-2.1 the list of supported encodings and aliases fill
29783 full pages, and include UCS-4, the full set of ISO-Latin encodings, and the
2979various Japanese ones.</p>
2980
2981<h4>Encoding aliases</h4>
2982
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002983<p>From 2.2.3, libxml2 has support to register encoding names aliases. The
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002984goal is to be able to parse document whose encoding is supported but where
2985the name differs (for example from the default set of names accepted by
2986iconv). The following functions allow to register and handle new aliases for
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00002987existing encodings. Once registered libxml2 will automatically lookup the
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00002988aliases when handling a document:</p>
2989<ul>
2990 <li>int xmlAddEncodingAlias(const char *name, const char *alias);</li>
2991 <li>int xmlDelEncodingAlias(const char *alias);</li>
2992 <li>const char * xmlGetEncodingAlias(const char *alias);</li>
2993 <li>void xmlCleanupEncodingAliases(void);</li>
2994</ul>
2995
2996<h3><a name="extend">How to extend the existing support</a></h3>
2997
2998<p>Well adding support for new encoding, or overriding one of the encoders
2999(assuming it is buggy) should not be hard, just write an input and output
3000conversion routines to/from UTF-8, and register them using
3001xmlNewCharEncodingHandler(name, xxxToUTF8, UTF8Toxxx), and they will be
3002called automatically if the parser(s) encounter such an encoding name
3003(register it uppercase, this will help). The description of the encoders,
3004their arguments and expected return values are described in the encoding.h
3005header.</p>
3006
3007<p>A quick note on the topic of subverting the parser to use a different
3008internal encoding than UTF-8, in some case people will absolutely want to
3009keep the internal encoding different, I think it's still possible (but the
3010encoding must be compliant with ASCII on the same subrange) though I didn't
3011tried it. The key is to override the default conversion routines (by
3012registering null encoders/decoders for your charsets), and bypass the UTF-8
3013checking of the parser by setting the parser context charset
3014(ctxt-&gt;charset) to something different than XML_CHAR_ENCODING_UTF8, but
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00003015there is no guarantee that this will work. You may also have some troubles
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003016saving back.</p>
3017
3018<p>Basically proper I18N support is important, this requires at least
3019libxml-2.0.0, but a lot of features and corrections are really available only
3020starting 2.2.</p>
3021
3022<h2><a name="IO">I/O Interfaces</a></h2>
3023
3024<p>Table of Content:</p>
3025<ol>
3026 <li><a href="#General1">General overview</a></li>
3027 <li><a href="#basic">The basic buffer type</a></li>
3028 <li><a href="#Input">Input I/O handlers</a></li>
3029 <li><a href="#Output">Output I/O handlers</a></li>
3030 <li><a href="#entities">The entities loader</a></li>
3031 <li><a href="#Example2">Example of customized I/O</a></li>
3032</ol>
3033
3034<h3><a name="General1">General overview</a></h3>
3035
3036<p>The module <code><a
3037href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-xmlio.html">xmlIO.h</a></code> provides
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003038the interfaces to the libxml2 I/O system. This consists of 4 main parts:</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003039<ul>
3040 <li>Entities loader, this is a routine which tries to fetch the entities
3041 (files) based on their PUBLIC and SYSTEM identifiers. The default loader
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003042 don't look at the public identifier since libxml2 do not maintain a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003043 catalog. You can redefine you own entity loader by using
3044 <code>xmlGetExternalEntityLoader()</code> and
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +00003045 <code>xmlSetExternalEntityLoader()</code>. <a href="#entities">Check the
3046 example</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003047 <li>Input I/O buffers which are a commodity structure used by the parser(s)
3048 input layer to handle fetching the informations to feed the parser. This
3049 provides buffering and is also a placeholder where the encoding
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00003050 converters to UTF8 are piggy-backed.</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003051 <li>Output I/O buffers are similar to the Input ones and fulfill similar
3052 task but when generating a serialization from a tree.</li>
3053 <li>A mechanism to register sets of I/O callbacks and associate them with
3054 specific naming schemes like the protocol part of the URIs.
3055 <p>This affect the default I/O operations and allows to use specific I/O
3056 handlers for certain names.</p>
3057 </li>
3058</ul>
3059
3060<p>The general mechanism used when loading http://rpmfind.net/xml.html for
3061example in the HTML parser is the following:</p>
3062<ol>
3063 <li>The default entity loader calls <code>xmlNewInputFromFile()</code> with
3064 the parsing context and the URI string.</li>
3065 <li>the URI string is checked against the existing registered handlers
3066 using their match() callback function, if the HTTP module was compiled
3067 in, it is registered and its match() function will succeeds</li>
3068 <li>the open() function of the handler is called and if successful will
3069 return an I/O Input buffer</li>
3070 <li>the parser will the start reading from this buffer and progressively
3071 fetch information from the resource, calling the read() function of the
3072 handler until the resource is exhausted</li>
3073 <li>if an encoding change is detected it will be installed on the input
3074 buffer, providing buffering and efficient use of the conversion
3075 routines</li>
3076 <li>once the parser has finished, the close() function of the handler is
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00003077 called once and the Input buffer and associated resources are
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003078 deallocated.</li>
3079</ol>
3080
3081<p>The user defined callbacks are checked first to allow overriding of the
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003082default libxml2 I/O routines.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003083
3084<h3><a name="basic">The basic buffer type</a></h3>
3085
3086<p>All the buffer manipulation handling is done using the
3087<code>xmlBuffer</code> type define in <code><a
3088href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html">tree.h</a> </code>which is a
3089resizable memory buffer. The buffer allocation strategy can be selected to be
3090either best-fit or use an exponential doubling one (CPU vs. memory use
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00003091trade-off). The values are <code>XML_BUFFER_ALLOC_EXACT</code> and
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003092<code>XML_BUFFER_ALLOC_DOUBLEIT</code>, and can be set individually or on a
3093system wide basis using <code>xmlBufferSetAllocationScheme()</code>. A number
3094of functions allows to manipulate buffers with names starting with the
3095<code>xmlBuffer...</code> prefix.</p>
3096
3097<h3><a name="Input">Input I/O handlers</a></h3>
3098
3099<p>An Input I/O handler is a simple structure
3100<code>xmlParserInputBuffer</code> containing a context associated to the
3101resource (file descriptor, or pointer to a protocol handler), the read() and
3102close() callbacks to use and an xmlBuffer. And extra xmlBuffer and a charset
3103encoding handler are also present to support charset conversion when
3104needed.</p>
3105
3106<h3><a name="Output">Output I/O handlers</a></h3>
3107
3108<p>An Output handler <code>xmlOutputBuffer</code> is completely similar to an
3109Input one except the callbacks are write() and close().</p>
3110
3111<h3><a name="entities">The entities loader</a></h3>
3112
3113<p>The entity loader resolves requests for new entities and create inputs for
3114the parser. Creating an input from a filename or an URI string is done
3115through the xmlNewInputFromFile() routine. The default entity loader do not
3116handle the PUBLIC identifier associated with an entity (if any). So it just
3117calls xmlNewInputFromFile() with the SYSTEM identifier (which is mandatory in
3118XML).</p>
3119
3120<p>If you want to hook up a catalog mechanism then you simply need to
3121override the default entity loader, here is an example:</p>
3122<pre>#include &lt;libxml/xmlIO.h&gt;
3123
3124xmlExternalEntityLoader defaultLoader = NULL;
3125
3126xmlParserInputPtr
3127xmlMyExternalEntityLoader(const char *URL, const char *ID,
3128 xmlParserCtxtPtr ctxt) {
3129 xmlParserInputPtr ret;
3130 const char *fileID = NULL;
3131 /* lookup for the fileID depending on ID */
3132
3133 ret = xmlNewInputFromFile(ctxt, fileID);
3134 if (ret != NULL)
3135 return(ret);
3136 if (defaultLoader != NULL)
3137 ret = defaultLoader(URL, ID, ctxt);
3138 return(ret);
3139}
3140
3141int main(..) {
3142 ...
3143
3144 /*
3145 * Install our own entity loader
3146 */
3147 defaultLoader = xmlGetExternalEntityLoader();
3148 xmlSetExternalEntityLoader(xmlMyExternalEntityLoader);
3149
3150 ...
3151}</pre>
3152
3153<h3><a name="Example2">Example of customized I/O</a></h3>
3154
3155<p>This example come from <a href="http://xmlsoft.org/messages/0708.html">a
3156real use case</a>, xmlDocDump() closes the FILE * passed by the application
3157and this was a problem. The <a
3158href="http://xmlsoft.org/messages/0711.html">solution</a> was to redefine a
3159new output handler with the closing call deactivated:</p>
3160<ol>
Daniel Veillardc0801af2002-05-28 16:28:42 +00003161 <li>First define a new I/O output allocator where the output don't close
3162 the file:
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003163 <pre>xmlOutputBufferPtr
3164xmlOutputBufferCreateOwn(FILE *file, xmlCharEncodingHandlerPtr encoder) {
3165    xmlOutputBufferPtr ret;
3166    
3167    if (xmlOutputCallbackInitialized == 0)
3168        xmlRegisterDefaultOutputCallbacks();
3169
3170    if (file == NULL) return(NULL);
3171    ret = xmlAllocOutputBuffer(encoder);
3172    if (ret != NULL) {
3173        ret-&gt;context = file;
3174        ret-&gt;writecallback = xmlFileWrite;
3175        ret-&gt;closecallback = NULL; /* No close callback */
3176    }
Daniel Veillardf83a2c72003-04-08 13:48:40 +00003177    return(ret);
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003178} </pre>
3179 </li>
3180 <li>And then use it to save the document:
3181 <pre>FILE *f;
3182xmlOutputBufferPtr output;
3183xmlDocPtr doc;
3184int res;
3185
3186f = ...
3187doc = ....
3188
3189output = xmlOutputBufferCreateOwn(f, NULL);
3190res = xmlSaveFileTo(output, doc, NULL);
3191 </pre>
3192 </li>
3193</ol>
3194
3195<h2><a name="Catalog">Catalog support</a></h2>
3196
3197<p>Table of Content:</p>
3198<ol>
3199 <li><a href="General2">General overview</a></li>
3200 <li><a href="#definition">The definition</a></li>
3201 <li><a href="#Simple">Using catalogs</a></li>
3202 <li><a href="#Some">Some examples</a></li>
3203 <li><a href="#reference">How to tune catalog usage</a></li>
3204 <li><a href="#validate">How to debug catalog processing</a></li>
3205 <li><a href="#Declaring">How to create and maintain catalogs</a></li>
3206 <li><a href="#implemento">The implementor corner quick review of the
3207 API</a></li>
3208 <li><a href="#Other">Other resources</a></li>
3209</ol>
3210
3211<h3><a name="General2">General overview</a></h3>
3212
3213<p>What is a catalog? Basically it's a lookup mechanism used when an entity
3214(a file or a remote resource) references another entity. The catalog lookup
3215is inserted between the moment the reference is recognized by the software
3216(XML parser, stylesheet processing, or even images referenced for inclusion
3217in a rendering) and the time where loading that resource is actually
3218started.</p>
3219
3220<p>It is basically used for 3 things:</p>
3221<ul>
3222 <li>mapping from "logical" names, the public identifiers and a more
3223 concrete name usable for download (and URI). For example it can associate
3224 the logical name
3225 <p>"-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"</p>
3226 <p>of the DocBook 4.1.2 XML DTD with the actual URL where it can be
3227 downloaded</p>
3228 <p>http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd</p>
3229 </li>
3230 <li>remapping from a given URL to another one, like an HTTP indirection
3231 saying that
3232 <p>"http://www.oasis-open.org/committes/tr.xsl"</p>
3233 <p>should really be looked at</p>
3234 <p>"http://www.oasis-open.org/committes/entity/stylesheets/base/tr.xsl"</p>
3235 </li>
3236 <li>providing a local cache mechanism allowing to load the entities
3237 associated to public identifiers or remote resources, this is a really
3238 important feature for any significant deployment of XML or SGML since it
3239 allows to avoid the aleas and delays associated to fetching remote
3240 resources.</li>
3241</ul>
3242
3243<h3><a name="definition">The definitions</a></h3>
3244
3245<p>Libxml, as of 2.4.3 implements 2 kind of catalogs:</p>
3246<ul>
3247 <li>the older SGML catalogs, the official spec is SGML Open Technical
3248 Resolution TR9401:1997, but is better understood by reading <a
3249 href="http://www.jclark.com/sp/catalog.htm">the SP Catalog page</a> from
3250 James Clark. This is relatively old and not the preferred mode of
3251 operation of libxml.</li>
3252 <li><a href="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/entity/spec.html">XML
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00003253 Catalogs</a> is far more flexible, more recent, uses an XML syntax and
3254 should scale quite better. This is the default option of libxml.</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003255</ul>
3256
3257<p></p>
3258
3259<h3><a name="Simple">Using catalog</a></h3>
3260
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003261<p>In a normal environment libxml2 will by default check the presence of a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003262catalog in /etc/xml/catalog, and assuming it has been correctly populated,
3263the processing is completely transparent to the document user. To take a
3264concrete example, suppose you are authoring a DocBook document, this one
3265starts with the following DOCTYPE definition:</p>
3266<pre>&lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
3267&lt;!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//Norman Walsh//DTD DocBk XML V3.1.4//EN"
3268 "http://nwalsh.com/docbook/xml/3.1.4/db3xml.dtd"&gt;</pre>
3269
3270<p>When validating the document with libxml, the catalog will be
3271automatically consulted to lookup the public identifier "-//Norman Walsh//DTD
3272DocBk XML V3.1.4//EN" and the system identifier
3273"http://nwalsh.com/docbook/xml/3.1.4/db3xml.dtd", and if these entities have
3274been installed on your system and the catalogs actually point to them, libxml
3275will fetch them from the local disk.</p>
3276
3277<p style="font-size: 10pt"><strong>Note</strong>: Really don't use this
3278DOCTYPE example it's a really old version, but is fine as an example.</p>
3279
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003280<p>Libxml2 will check the catalog each time that it is requested to load an
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003281entity, this includes DTD, external parsed entities, stylesheets, etc ... If
3282your system is correctly configured all the authoring phase and processing
3283should use only local files, even if your document stays portable because it
3284uses the canonical public and system ID, referencing the remote document.</p>
3285
3286<h3><a name="Some">Some examples:</a></h3>
3287
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003288<p>Here is a couple of fragments from XML Catalogs used in libxml2 early
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003289regression tests in <code>test/catalogs</code> :</p>
3290<pre>&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
3291&lt;!DOCTYPE catalog PUBLIC
3292 "-//OASIS//DTD Entity Resolution XML Catalog V1.0//EN"
3293 "http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/entity/release/1.0/catalog.dtd"&gt;
3294&lt;catalog xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:entity:xmlns:xml:catalog"&gt;
3295 &lt;public publicId="-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
3296 uri="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd"/&gt;
3297...</pre>
3298
3299<p>This is the beginning of a catalog for DocBook 4.1.2, XML Catalogs are
3300written in XML, there is a specific namespace for catalog elements
3301"urn:oasis:names:tc:entity:xmlns:xml:catalog". The first entry in this
3302catalog is a <code>public</code> mapping it allows to associate a Public
3303Identifier with an URI.</p>
3304<pre>...
3305 &lt;rewriteSystem systemIdStartString="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/"
3306 rewritePrefix="file:///usr/share/xml/docbook/"/&gt;
3307...</pre>
3308
3309<p>A <code>rewriteSystem</code> is a very powerful instruction, it says that
3310any URI starting with a given prefix should be looked at another URI
3311constructed by replacing the prefix with an new one. In effect this acts like
3312a cache system for a full area of the Web. In practice it is extremely useful
3313with a file prefix if you have installed a copy of those resources on your
3314local system.</p>
3315<pre>...
3316&lt;delegatePublic publicIdStartString="-//OASIS//DTD XML Catalog //"
3317 catalog="file:///usr/share/xml/docbook.xml"/&gt;
3318&lt;delegatePublic publicIdStartString="-//OASIS//ENTITIES DocBook XML"
3319 catalog="file:///usr/share/xml/docbook.xml"/&gt;
3320&lt;delegatePublic publicIdStartString="-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML"
3321 catalog="file:///usr/share/xml/docbook.xml"/&gt;
3322&lt;delegateSystem systemIdStartString="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/"
3323 catalog="file:///usr/share/xml/docbook.xml"/&gt;
3324&lt;delegateURI uriStartString="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/"
3325 catalog="file:///usr/share/xml/docbook.xml"/&gt;
3326...</pre>
3327
3328<p>Delegation is the core features which allows to build a tree of catalogs,
3329easier to maintain than a single catalog, based on Public Identifier, System
3330Identifier or URI prefixes it instructs the catalog software to look up
3331entries in another resource. This feature allow to build hierarchies of
3332catalogs, the set of entries presented should be sufficient to redirect the
3333resolution of all DocBook references to the specific catalog in
3334<code>/usr/share/xml/docbook.xml</code> this one in turn could delegate all
3335references for DocBook 4.2.1 to a specific catalog installed at the same time
3336as the DocBook resources on the local machine.</p>
3337
3338<h3><a name="reference">How to tune catalog usage:</a></h3>
3339
3340<p>The user can change the default catalog behaviour by redirecting queries
3341to its own set of catalogs, this can be done by setting the
3342<code>XML_CATALOG_FILES</code> environment variable to a list of catalogs, an
3343empty one should deactivate loading the default <code>/etc/xml/catalog</code>
3344default catalog</p>
3345
3346<h3><a name="validate">How to debug catalog processing:</a></h3>
3347
3348<p>Setting up the <code>XML_DEBUG_CATALOG</code> environment variable will
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003349make libxml2 output debugging informations for each catalog operations, for
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003350example:</p>
3351<pre>orchis:~/XML -&gt; xmllint --memory --noout test/ent2
3352warning: failed to load external entity "title.xml"
3353orchis:~/XML -&gt; export XML_DEBUG_CATALOG=
3354orchis:~/XML -&gt; xmllint --memory --noout test/ent2
3355Failed to parse catalog /etc/xml/catalog
3356Failed to parse catalog /etc/xml/catalog
3357warning: failed to load external entity "title.xml"
3358Catalogs cleanup
3359orchis:~/XML -&gt; </pre>
3360
3361<p>The test/ent2 references an entity, running the parser from memory makes
3362the base URI unavailable and the the "title.xml" entity cannot be loaded.
3363Setting up the debug environment variable allows to detect that an attempt is
3364made to load the <code>/etc/xml/catalog</code> but since it's not present the
3365resolution fails.</p>
3366
3367<p>But the most advanced way to debug XML catalog processing is to use the
3368<strong>xmlcatalog</strong> command shipped with libxml2, it allows to load
3369catalogs and make resolution queries to see what is going on. This is also
3370used for the regression tests:</p>
3371<pre>orchis:~/XML -&gt; ./xmlcatalog test/catalogs/docbook.xml \
3372 "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
3373http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd
3374orchis:~/XML -&gt; </pre>
3375
3376<p>For debugging what is going on, adding one -v flags increase the verbosity
3377level to indicate the processing done (adding a second flag also indicate
3378what elements are recognized at parsing):</p>
3379<pre>orchis:~/XML -&gt; ./xmlcatalog -v test/catalogs/docbook.xml \
3380 "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
3381Parsing catalog test/catalogs/docbook.xml's content
3382Found public match -//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN
3383http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd
3384Catalogs cleanup
3385orchis:~/XML -&gt; </pre>
3386
3387<p>A shell interface is also available to debug and process multiple queries
3388(and for regression tests):</p>
3389<pre>orchis:~/XML -&gt; ./xmlcatalog -shell test/catalogs/docbook.xml \
3390 "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
3391&gt; help
3392Commands available:
3393public PublicID: make a PUBLIC identifier lookup
3394system SystemID: make a SYSTEM identifier lookup
3395resolve PublicID SystemID: do a full resolver lookup
3396add 'type' 'orig' 'replace' : add an entry
3397del 'values' : remove values
3398dump: print the current catalog state
3399debug: increase the verbosity level
3400quiet: decrease the verbosity level
3401exit: quit the shell
3402&gt; public "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
3403http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd
3404&gt; quit
3405orchis:~/XML -&gt; </pre>
3406
3407<p>This should be sufficient for most debugging purpose, this was actually
3408used heavily to debug the XML Catalog implementation itself.</p>
3409
3410<h3><a name="Declaring">How to create and maintain</a> catalogs:</h3>
3411
3412<p>Basically XML Catalogs are XML files, you can either use XML tools to
3413manage them or use <strong>xmlcatalog</strong> for this. The basic step is
3414to create a catalog the -create option provide this facility:</p>
3415<pre>orchis:~/XML -&gt; ./xmlcatalog --create tst.xml
3416&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
3417&lt;!DOCTYPE catalog PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD Entity Resolution XML Catalog V1.0//EN"
3418 "http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/entity/release/1.0/catalog.dtd"&gt;
3419&lt;catalog xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:entity:xmlns:xml:catalog"/&gt;
3420orchis:~/XML -&gt; </pre>
3421
3422<p>By default xmlcatalog does not overwrite the original catalog and save the
3423result on the standard output, this can be overridden using the -noout
3424option. The <code>-add</code> command allows to add entries in the
3425catalog:</p>
3426<pre>orchis:~/XML -&gt; ./xmlcatalog --noout --create --add "public" \
3427 "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN" \
3428 http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd tst.xml
3429orchis:~/XML -&gt; cat tst.xml
3430&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
3431&lt;!DOCTYPE catalog PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD Entity Resolution XML Catalog V1.0//EN" \
3432 "http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/entity/release/1.0/catalog.dtd"&gt;
3433&lt;catalog xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:entity:xmlns:xml:catalog"&gt;
3434&lt;public publicId="-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
3435 uri="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd"/&gt;
3436&lt;/catalog&gt;
3437orchis:~/XML -&gt; </pre>
3438
3439<p>The <code>-add</code> option will always take 3 parameters even if some of
3440the XML Catalog constructs (like nextCatalog) will have only a single
3441argument, just pass a third empty string, it will be ignored.</p>
3442
3443<p>Similarly the <code>-del</code> option remove matching entries from the
3444catalog:</p>
3445<pre>orchis:~/XML -&gt; ./xmlcatalog --del \
3446 "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd" tst.xml
3447&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
3448&lt;!DOCTYPE catalog PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD Entity Resolution XML Catalog V1.0//EN"
3449 "http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/entity/release/1.0/catalog.dtd"&gt;
3450&lt;catalog xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:entity:xmlns:xml:catalog"/&gt;
3451orchis:~/XML -&gt; </pre>
3452
3453<p>The catalog is now empty. Note that the matching of <code>-del</code> is
3454exact and would have worked in a similar fashion with the Public ID
3455string.</p>
3456
3457<p>This is rudimentary but should be sufficient to manage a not too complex
3458catalog tree of resources.</p>
3459
3460<h3><a name="implemento">The implementor corner quick review of the
3461API:</a></h3>
3462
3463<p>First, and like for every other module of libxml, there is an
3464automatically generated <a href="html/libxml-catalog.html">API page for
3465catalog support</a>.</p>
3466
3467<p>The header for the catalog interfaces should be included as:</p>
3468<pre>#include &lt;libxml/catalog.h&gt;</pre>
3469
3470<p>The API is voluntarily kept very simple. First it is not obvious that
3471applications really need access to it since it is the default behaviour of
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +00003472libxml2 (Note: it is possible to completely override libxml2 default catalog
3473by using <a href="html/libxml-parser.html">xmlSetExternalEntityLoader</a> to
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003474plug an application specific resolver).</p>
3475
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003476<p>Basically libxml2 support 2 catalog lists:</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003477<ul>
3478 <li>the default one, global shared by all the application</li>
3479 <li>a per-document catalog, this one is built if the document uses the
3480 <code>oasis-xml-catalog</code> PIs to specify its own catalog list, it is
3481 associated to the parser context and destroyed when the parsing context
3482 is destroyed.</li>
3483</ul>
3484
3485<p>the document one will be used first if it exists.</p>
3486
3487<h4>Initialization routines:</h4>
3488
3489<p>xmlInitializeCatalog(), xmlLoadCatalog() and xmlLoadCatalogs() should be
3490used at startup to initialize the catalog, if the catalog should be
3491initialized with specific values xmlLoadCatalog() or xmlLoadCatalogs()
3492should be called before xmlInitializeCatalog() which would otherwise do a
3493default initialization first.</p>
3494
3495<p>The xmlCatalogAddLocal() call is used by the parser to grow the document
3496own catalog list if needed.</p>
3497
3498<h4>Preferences setup:</h4>
3499
3500<p>The XML Catalog spec requires the possibility to select default
3501preferences between public and system delegation,
3502xmlCatalogSetDefaultPrefer() allows this, xmlCatalogSetDefaults() and
3503xmlCatalogGetDefaults() allow to control if XML Catalogs resolution should
3504be forbidden, allowed for global catalog, for document catalog or both, the
3505default is to allow both.</p>
3506
3507<p>And of course xmlCatalogSetDebug() allows to generate debug messages
3508(through the xmlGenericError() mechanism).</p>
3509
3510<h4>Querying routines:</h4>
3511
3512<p>xmlCatalogResolve(), xmlCatalogResolveSystem(), xmlCatalogResolvePublic()
3513and xmlCatalogResolveURI() are relatively explicit if you read the XML
3514Catalog specification they correspond to section 7 algorithms, they should
3515also work if you have loaded an SGML catalog with a simplified semantic.</p>
3516
3517<p>xmlCatalogLocalResolve() and xmlCatalogLocalResolveURI() are the same but
3518operate on the document catalog list</p>
3519
3520<h4>Cleanup and Miscellaneous:</h4>
3521
3522<p>xmlCatalogCleanup() free-up the global catalog, xmlCatalogFreeLocal() is
3523the per-document equivalent.</p>
3524
3525<p>xmlCatalogAdd() and xmlCatalogRemove() are used to dynamically modify the
3526first catalog in the global list, and xmlCatalogDump() allows to dump a
3527catalog state, those routines are primarily designed for xmlcatalog, I'm not
3528sure that exposing more complex interfaces (like navigation ones) would be
3529really useful.</p>
3530
3531<p>The xmlParseCatalogFile() is a function used to load XML Catalog files,
3532it's similar as xmlParseFile() except it bypass all catalog lookups, it's
3533provided because this functionality may be useful for client tools.</p>
3534
3535<h4>threaded environments:</h4>
3536
3537<p>Since the catalog tree is built progressively, some care has been taken to
3538try to avoid troubles in multithreaded environments. The code is now thread
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003539safe assuming that the libxml2 library has been compiled with threads
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003540support.</p>
3541
3542<p></p>
3543
3544<h3><a name="Other">Other resources</a></h3>
3545
3546<p>The XML Catalog specification is relatively recent so there isn't much
3547literature to point at:</p>
3548<ul>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00003549 <li>You can find a good rant from Norm Walsh about <a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003550 href="http://www.arbortext.com/Think_Tank/XML_Resources/Issue_Three/issue_three.html">the
3551 need for catalogs</a>, it provides a lot of context informations even if
Daniel Veillard93d3a472002-04-26 14:04:55 +00003552 I don't agree with everything presented. Norm also wrote a more recent
3553 article <a
3554 href="http://wwws.sun.com/software/xml/developers/resolver/article/">XML
3555 entities and URI resolvers</a> describing them.</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003556 <li>An <a href="http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/XML/XCatalog.html">old XML
3557 catalog proposal</a> from John Cowan</li>
3558 <li>The <a href="http://www.rddl.org/">Resource Directory Description
3559 Language</a> (RDDL) another catalog system but more oriented toward
3560 providing metadata for XML namespaces.</li>
3561 <li>the page from the OASIS Technical <a
3562 href="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/entity/">Committee on Entity
3563 Resolution</a> who maintains XML Catalog, you will find pointers to the
3564 specification update, some background and pointers to others tools
3565 providing XML Catalog support</li>
Daniel Veillard35e937a2002-01-19 22:21:54 +00003566 <li>Here is a <a href="buildDocBookCatalog">shell script</a> to generate
3567 XML Catalogs for DocBook 4.1.2 . If it can write to the /etc/xml/
3568 directory, it will set-up /etc/xml/catalog and /etc/xml/docbook based on
3569 the resources found on the system. Otherwise it will just create
3570 ~/xmlcatalog and ~/dbkxmlcatalog and doing:
Daniel Veillard8594de92003-04-25 10:08:44 +00003571 <p><code>export XML_CATALOG_FILES=$HOME/xmlcatalog</code></p>
Daniel Veillard35e937a2002-01-19 22:21:54 +00003572 <p>should allow to process DocBook documentations without requiring
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00003573 network accesses for the DTD or stylesheets</p>
Daniel Veillard35e937a2002-01-19 22:21:54 +00003574 </li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003575 <li>I have uploaded <a href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/test/dbk412catalog.tar.gz">a
Daniel Veillard35e937a2002-01-19 22:21:54 +00003576 small tarball</a> containing XML Catalogs for DocBook 4.1.2 which seems
3577 to work fine for me too</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003578 <li>The <a href="http://www.xmlsoft.org/xmlcatalog_man.html">xmlcatalog
3579 manual page</a></li>
3580</ul>
3581
3582<p>If you have suggestions for corrections or additions, simply contact
3583me:</p>
3584
3585<h2><a name="library">The parser interfaces</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003586
3587<p>This section is directly intended to help programmers getting bootstrapped
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003588using the XML tollkit from the C language. It is not intended to be
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00003589extensive. I hope the automatically generated documents will provide the
3590completeness required, but as a separate set of documents. The interfaces of
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +00003591the XML parser are by principle low level, Those interested in a higher level
3592API should <a href="#DOM">look at DOM</a>.</p>
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +00003593
Daniel Veillard9cb5ff42001-01-29 08:22:21 +00003594<p>The <a href="html/libxml-parser.html">parser interfaces for XML</a> are
3595separated from the <a href="html/libxml-htmlparser.html">HTML parser
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003596interfaces</a>. Let's have a look at how the XML parser can be called:</p>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +00003597
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003598<h3><a name="Invoking">Invoking the parser : the pull method</a></h3>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003599
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003600<p>Usually, the first thing to do is to read an XML input. The parser accepts
3601documents either from in-memory strings or from files. The functions are
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003602defined in "parser.h":</p>
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +00003603<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003604 <dt><code>xmlDocPtr xmlParseMemory(char *buffer, int size);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003605 <dd><p>Parse a null-terminated string containing the document.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003606 </dd>
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +00003607</dl>
3608<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003609 <dt><code>xmlDocPtr xmlParseFile(const char *filename);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00003610 <dd><p>Parse an XML document contained in a (possibly compressed)
3611 file.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003612 </dd>
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +00003613</dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003614
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003615<p>The parser returns a pointer to the document structure (or NULL in case of
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +00003616failure).</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003617
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003618<h3 id="Invoking1">Invoking the parser: the push method</h3>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +00003619
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00003620<p>In order for the application to keep the control when the document is
Daniel Veillard560c2a42003-07-06 21:13:49 +00003621being fetched (which is common for GUI based programs) libxml2 provides a
3622push interface, too, as of version 1.8.3. Here are the interface
3623functions:</p>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +00003624<pre>xmlParserCtxtPtr xmlCreatePushParserCtxt(xmlSAXHandlerPtr sax,
3625 void *user_data,
3626 const char *chunk,
3627 int size,
3628 const char *filename);
3629int xmlParseChunk (xmlParserCtxtPtr ctxt,
3630 const char *chunk,
3631 int size,
3632 int terminate);</pre>
3633
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003634<p>and here is a simple example showing how to use the interface:</p>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +00003635<pre> FILE *f;
3636
3637 f = fopen(filename, "r");
3638 if (f != NULL) {
3639 int res, size = 1024;
3640 char chars[1024];
3641 xmlParserCtxtPtr ctxt;
3642
3643 res = fread(chars, 1, 4, f);
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003644 if (res &gt; 0) {
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +00003645 ctxt = xmlCreatePushParserCtxt(NULL, NULL,
3646 chars, res, filename);
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003647 while ((res = fread(chars, 1, size, f)) &gt; 0) {
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +00003648 xmlParseChunk(ctxt, chars, res, 0);
3649 }
3650 xmlParseChunk(ctxt, chars, 0, 1);
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003651 doc = ctxt-&gt;myDoc;
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +00003652 xmlFreeParserCtxt(ctxt);
3653 }
3654 }</pre>
3655
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003656<p>The HTML parser embedded into libxml2 also has a push interface; the
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +00003657functions are just prefixed by "html" rather than "xml".</p>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +00003658
3659<h3 id="Invoking2">Invoking the parser: the SAX interface</h3>
3660
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +00003661<p>The tree-building interface makes the parser memory-hungry, first loading
3662the document in memory and then building the tree itself. Reading a document
3663without building the tree is possible using the SAX interfaces (see SAX.h and
3664<a href="http://www.daa.com.au/~james/gnome/xml-sax/xml-sax.html">James
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003665Henstridge's documentation</a>). Note also that the push interface can be
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00003666limited to SAX: just use the two first arguments of
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +00003667<code>xmlCreatePushParserCtxt()</code>.</p>
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +00003668
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00003669<h3><a name="Building">Building a tree from scratch</a></h3>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003670
3671<p>The other way to get an XML tree in memory is by building it. Basically
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00003672there is a set of functions dedicated to building new elements. (These are
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00003673also described in &lt;libxml/tree.h&gt;.) For example, here is a piece of
3674code that produces the XML document used in the previous examples:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003675<pre> #include &lt;libxml/tree.h&gt;
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +00003676 xmlDocPtr doc;
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003677 xmlNodePtr tree, subtree;
3678
3679 doc = xmlNewDoc("1.0");
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003680 doc-&gt;children = xmlNewDocNode(doc, NULL, "EXAMPLE", NULL);
3681 xmlSetProp(doc-&gt;children, "prop1", "gnome is great");
3682 xmlSetProp(doc-&gt;children, "prop2", "&amp; linux too");
3683 tree = xmlNewChild(doc-&gt;children, NULL, "head", NULL);
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003684 subtree = xmlNewChild(tree, NULL, "title", "Welcome to Gnome");
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003685 tree = xmlNewChild(doc-&gt;children, NULL, "chapter", NULL);
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003686 subtree = xmlNewChild(tree, NULL, "title", "The Linux adventure");
3687 subtree = xmlNewChild(tree, NULL, "p", "bla bla bla ...");
3688 subtree = xmlNewChild(tree, NULL, "image", NULL);
3689 xmlSetProp(subtree, "href", "linus.gif");</pre>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003690
3691<p>Not really rocket science ...</p>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003692
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00003693<h3><a name="Traversing">Traversing the tree</a></h3>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003694
Daniel Veillard9cb5ff42001-01-29 08:22:21 +00003695<p>Basically by <a href="html/libxml-tree.html">including "tree.h"</a> your
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00003696code has access to the internal structure of all the elements of the tree.
3697The names should be somewhat simple like <strong>parent</strong>,
Daniel Veillard306be992000-07-03 12:38:45 +00003698<strong>children</strong>, <strong>next</strong>, <strong>prev</strong>,
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003699<strong>properties</strong>, etc... For example, still with the previous
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +00003700example:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003701<pre><code>doc-&gt;children-&gt;children-&gt;children</code></pre>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003702
3703<p>points to the title element,</p>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00003704<pre>doc-&gt;children-&gt;children-&gt;next-&gt;children-&gt;children</pre>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003705
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00003706<p>points to the text node containing the chapter title "The Linux
3707adventure".</p>
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +00003708
Daniel Veillardb24054a1999-12-18 15:32:46 +00003709<p><strong>NOTE</strong>: XML allows <em>PI</em>s and <em>comments</em> to be
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003710present before the document root, so <code>doc-&gt;children</code> may point
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00003711to an element which is not the document Root Element; a function
Daniel Veillard5cb5ab81999-12-21 15:35:29 +00003712<code>xmlDocGetRootElement()</code> was added for this purpose.</p>
Daniel Veillardb24054a1999-12-18 15:32:46 +00003713
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00003714<h3><a name="Modifying">Modifying the tree</a></h3>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003715
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003716<p>Functions are provided for reading and writing the document content. Here
Daniel Veillard9cb5ff42001-01-29 08:22:21 +00003717is an excerpt from the <a href="html/libxml-tree.html">tree API</a>:</p>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003718<dl>
Daniel Veillarddd6b3671999-09-23 22:19:22 +00003719 <dt><code>xmlAttrPtr xmlSetProp(xmlNodePtr node, const xmlChar *name, const
3720 xmlChar *value);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00003721 <dd><p>This sets (or changes) an attribute carried by an ELEMENT node.
3722 The value can be NULL.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003723 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003724</dl>
3725<dl>
Daniel Veillarddd6b3671999-09-23 22:19:22 +00003726 <dt><code>const xmlChar *xmlGetProp(xmlNodePtr node, const xmlChar
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003727 *name);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillardc92c3042000-09-29 02:42:04 +00003728 <dd><p>This function returns a pointer to new copy of the property
3729 content. Note that the user must deallocate the result.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003730 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003731</dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003732
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00003733<p>Two functions are provided for reading and writing the text associated
3734with elements:</p>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003735<dl>
Daniel Veillarddd6b3671999-09-23 22:19:22 +00003736 <dt><code>xmlNodePtr xmlStringGetNodeList(xmlDocPtr doc, const xmlChar
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003737 *value);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +00003738 <dd><p>This function takes an "external" string and converts it to one
3739 text node or possibly to a list of entity and text nodes. All
3740 non-predefined entity references like &amp;Gnome; will be stored
3741 internally as entity nodes, hence the result of the function may not be
3742 a single node.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003743 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003744</dl>
3745<dl>
Daniel Veillarddd6b3671999-09-23 22:19:22 +00003746 <dt><code>xmlChar *xmlNodeListGetString(xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNodePtr list, int
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003747 inLine);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00003748 <dd><p>This function is the inverse of
3749 <code>xmlStringGetNodeList()</code>. It generates a new string
3750 containing the content of the text and entity nodes. Note the extra
3751 argument inLine. If this argument is set to 1, the function will expand
3752 entity references. For example, instead of returning the &amp;Gnome;
3753 XML encoding in the string, it will substitute it with its value (say,
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00003754 "GNU Network Object Model Environment").</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003755 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003756</dl>
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +00003757
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00003758<h3><a name="Saving">Saving a tree</a></h3>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003759
3760<p>Basically 3 options are possible:</p>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003761<dl>
Daniel Veillarddd6b3671999-09-23 22:19:22 +00003762 <dt><code>void xmlDocDumpMemory(xmlDocPtr cur, xmlChar**mem, int
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003763 *size);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003764 <dd><p>Returns a buffer into which the document has been saved.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003765 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003766</dl>
3767<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003768 <dt><code>extern void xmlDocDump(FILE *f, xmlDocPtr doc);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003769 <dd><p>Dumps a document to an open file descriptor.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003770 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003771</dl>
3772<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003773 <dt><code>int xmlSaveFile(const char *filename, xmlDocPtr cur);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00003774 <dd><p>Saves the document to a file. In this case, the compression
3775 interface is triggered if it has been turned on.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003776 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003777</dl>
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +00003778
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00003779<h3><a name="Compressio">Compression</a></h3>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003780
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003781<p>The library transparently handles compression when doing file-based
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00003782accesses. The level of compression on saves can be turned on either globally
3783or individually for one file:</p>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003784<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003785 <dt><code>int xmlGetDocCompressMode (xmlDocPtr doc);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003786 <dd><p>Gets the document compression ratio (0-9).</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003787 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003788</dl>
3789<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003790 <dt><code>void xmlSetDocCompressMode (xmlDocPtr doc, int mode);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003791 <dd><p>Sets the document compression ratio.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003792 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003793</dl>
3794<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003795 <dt><code>int xmlGetCompressMode(void);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003796 <dd><p>Gets the default compression ratio.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003797 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003798</dl>
3799<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003800 <dt><code>void xmlSetCompressMode(int mode);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003801 <dd><p>Sets the default compression ratio.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00003802 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +00003803</dl>
3804
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00003805<h2><a name="Entities">Entities or no entities</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003806
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003807<p>Entities in principle are similar to simple C macros. An entity defines an
3808abbreviation for a given string that you can reuse many times throughout the
3809content of your document. Entities are especially useful when a given string
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00003810may occur frequently within a document, or to confine the change needed to a
3811document to a restricted area in the internal subset of the document (at the
3812beginning). Example:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003813<pre>1 &lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +000038142 &lt;!DOCTYPE EXAMPLE SYSTEM "example.dtd" [
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +000038153 &lt;!ENTITY xml "Extensible Markup Language"&gt;
38164 ]&gt;
38175 &lt;EXAMPLE&gt;
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +000038186 &amp;xml;
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +000038197 &lt;/EXAMPLE&gt;</pre>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003820
3821<p>Line 3 declares the xml entity. Line 6 uses the xml entity, by prefixing
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00003822its name with '&amp;' and following it by ';' without any spaces added. There
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003823are 5 predefined entities in libxml2 allowing you to escape characters with
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003824predefined meaning in some parts of the xml document content:
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003825<strong>&amp;lt;</strong> for the character '&lt;', <strong>&amp;gt;</strong>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003826for the character '&gt;', <strong>&amp;apos;</strong> for the character ''',
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003827<strong>&amp;quot;</strong> for the character '"', and
3828<strong>&amp;amp;</strong> for the character '&amp;'.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003829
3830<p>One of the problems related to entities is that you may want the parser to
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00003831substitute an entity's content so that you can see the replacement text in
3832your application. Or you may prefer to keep entity references as such in the
3833content to be able to save the document back without losing this usually
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00003834precious information (if the user went through the pain of explicitly
3835defining entities, he may have a a rather negative attitude if you blindly
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00003836substitute them as saving time). The <a
Daniel Veillard5373ea12003-07-24 13:09:13 +00003837href="html/libxml-parser.html#xmlSubstituteEntitiesDefault">xmlSubstituteEntitiesDefault()</a>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003838function allows you to check and change the behaviour, which is to not
3839substitute entities by default.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003840
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003841<p>Here is the DOM tree built by libxml2 for the previous document in the
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003842default case:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003843<pre>/gnome/src/gnome-xml -&gt; ./xmllint --debug test/ent1
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003844DOCUMENT
3845version=1.0
3846 ELEMENT EXAMPLE
3847 TEXT
3848 content=
3849 ENTITY_REF
3850 INTERNAL_GENERAL_ENTITY xml
3851 content=Extensible Markup Language
3852 TEXT
3853 content=</pre>
3854
3855<p>And here is the result when substituting entities:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003856<pre>/gnome/src/gnome-xml -&gt; ./tester --debug --noent test/ent1
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003857DOCUMENT
3858version=1.0
3859 ELEMENT EXAMPLE
3860 TEXT
3861 content= Extensible Markup Language</pre>
3862
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003863<p>So, entities or no entities? Basically, it depends on your use case. I
3864suggest that you keep the non-substituting default behaviour and avoid using
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003865entities in your XML document or data if you are not willing to handle the
3866entity references elements in the DOM tree.</p>
3867
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003868<p>Note that at save time libxml2 enforces the conversion of the predefined
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003869entities where necessary to prevent well-formedness problems, and will also
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00003870transparently replace those with chars (i.e. it will not generate entity
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003871reference elements in the DOM tree or call the reference() SAX callback when
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003872finding them in the input).</p>
3873
Daniel Veillard7b9c4b72000-08-25 16:26:50 +00003874<p><span style="background-color: #FF0000">WARNING</span>: handling entities
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003875on top of the libxml2 SAX interface is difficult!!! If you plan to use
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00003876non-predefined entities in your documents, then the learning curve to handle
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00003877then using the SAX API may be long. If you plan to use complex documents, I
Daniel Veillard7b9c4b72000-08-25 16:26:50 +00003878strongly suggest you consider using the DOM interface instead and let libxml
Daniel Veillard8c6d6af2000-08-25 17:14:13 +00003879deal with the complexity rather than trying to do it yourself.</p>
Daniel Veillard7b9c4b72000-08-25 16:26:50 +00003880
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +00003881<h2><a name="Namespaces">Namespaces</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003882
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003883<p>The libxml2 library implements <a
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +00003884href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/">XML namespaces</a> support by
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00003885recognizing namespace constructs in the input, and does namespace lookup
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +00003886automatically when building the DOM tree. A namespace declaration is
3887associated with an in-memory structure and all elements or attributes within
3888that namespace point to it. Hence testing the namespace is a simple and fast
3889equality operation at the user level.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003890
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003891<p>I suggest that people using libxml2 use a namespace, and declare it in the
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00003892root element of their document as the default namespace. Then they don't need
3893to use the prefix in the content but we will have a basis for future semantic
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00003894refinement and merging of data from different sources. This doesn't increase
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +00003895the size of the XML output significantly, but significantly increases its
3896value in the long-term. Example:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003897<pre>&lt;mydoc xmlns="http://mydoc.example.org/schemas/"&gt;
3898 &lt;elem1&gt;...&lt;/elem1&gt;
3899 &lt;elem2&gt;...&lt;/elem2&gt;
3900&lt;/mydoc&gt;</pre>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003901
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +00003902<p>The namespace value has to be an absolute URL, but the URL doesn't have to
3903point to any existing resource on the Web. It will bind all the element and
Daniel Veillardc0801af2002-05-28 16:28:42 +00003904attributes with that URL. I suggest to use an URL within a domain you
3905control, and that the URL should contain some kind of version information if
3906possible. For example, <code>"http://www.gnome.org/gnumeric/1.0/"</code> is a
3907good namespace scheme.</p>
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +00003908
3909<p>Then when you load a file, make sure that a namespace carrying the
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +00003910version-independent prefix is installed on the root element of your document,
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003911and if the version information don't match something you know, warn the user
3912and be liberal in what you accept as the input. Also do *not* try to base
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003913namespace checking on the prefix value. &lt;foo:text&gt; may be exactly the
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00003914same as &lt;bar:text&gt; in another document. What really matters is the URI
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00003915associated with the element or the attribute, not the prefix string (which is
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00003916just a shortcut for the full URI). In libxml, element and attributes have an
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +00003917<code>ns</code> field pointing to an xmlNs structure detailing the namespace
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00003918prefix and its URI.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003919
3920<p>@@Interfaces@@</p>
Daniel Veillard3e35f8e2003-10-21 00:05:38 +00003921<pre>xmlNodePtr node;
Daniel Veillardfc8dc352003-10-18 09:07:46 +00003922if(!strncmp(node-&gt;name,"mytag",5)
3923 &amp;&amp; node-&gt;ns
3924 &amp;&amp; !strcmp(node-&gt;ns-&gt;href,"http://www.mysite.com/myns/1.0")) {
3925 ...
Daniel Veillard3e35f8e2003-10-21 00:05:38 +00003926}</pre>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003927
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00003928<p>Usually people object to using namespaces together with validity checking.
3929I will try to make sure that using namespaces won't break validity checking,
3930so even if you plan to use or currently are using validation I strongly
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +00003931suggest adding namespaces to your document. A default namespace scheme
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003932<code>xmlns="http://...."</code> should not break validity even on less
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00003933flexible parsers. Using namespaces to mix and differentiate content coming
Daniel Veillard3e35f8e2003-10-21 00:05:38 +00003934from multiple DTDs will certainly break current validation schemes. To check
3935such documents one needs to use schema-validation, which is supported in
3936libxml2 as well. See <a href="http://www.relaxng.org/">relagx-ng</a> and <a
3937href="http://www.w3c.org/XML/Schema">w3c-schema</a>.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003938
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003939<h2><a name="Upgrading">Upgrading 1.x code</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003940
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003941<p>Incompatible changes:</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003942
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00003943<p>Version 2 of libxml2 is the first version introducing serious backward
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003944incompatible changes. The main goals were:</p>
3945<ul>
3946 <li>a general cleanup. A number of mistakes inherited from the very early
3947 versions couldn't be changed due to compatibility constraints. Example
3948 the "childs" element in the nodes.</li>
3949 <li>Uniformization of the various nodes, at least for their header and link
3950 parts (doc, parent, children, prev, next), the goal is a simpler
3951 programming model and simplifying the task of the DOM implementors.</li>
3952 <li>better conformances to the XML specification, for example version 1.x
3953 had an heuristic to try to detect ignorable white spaces. As a result the
3954 SAX event generated were ignorableWhitespace() while the spec requires
3955 character() in that case. This also mean that a number of DOM node
3956 containing blank text may populate the DOM tree which were not present
3957 before.</li>
3958</ul>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003959
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003960<h3>How to fix libxml-1.x code:</h3>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00003961
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003962<p>So client code of libxml designed to run with version 1.x may have to be
3963changed to compile against version 2.x of libxml. Here is a list of changes
3964that I have collected, they may not be sufficient, so in case you find other
Daniel Veillardfc8dc352003-10-18 09:07:46 +00003965change which are required, <a href="mailto:Daniel.Veillard@w3.org">drop me a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003966mail</a>:</p>
3967<ol>
3968 <li>The package name have changed from libxml to libxml2, the library name
3969 is now -lxml2 . There is a new xml2-config script which should be used to
3970 select the right parameters libxml2</li>
3971 <li>Node <strong>childs</strong> field has been renamed
3972 <strong>children</strong> so s/childs/children/g should be applied
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00003973 (probability of having "childs" anywhere else is close to 0+</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003974 <li>The document don't have anymore a <strong>root</strong> element it has
3975 been replaced by <strong>children</strong> and usually you will get a
3976 list of element here. For example a Dtd element for the internal subset
3977 and it's declaration may be found in that list, as well as processing
3978 instructions or comments found before or after the document root element.
3979 Use <strong>xmlDocGetRootElement(doc)</strong> to get the root element of
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00003980 a document. Alternatively if you are sure to not reference DTDs nor have
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003981 PIs or comments before or after the root element
3982 s/-&gt;root/-&gt;children/g will probably do it.</li>
3983 <li>The white space issue, this one is more complex, unless special case of
3984 validating parsing, the line breaks and spaces usually used for indenting
3985 and formatting the document content becomes significant. So they are
3986 reported by SAX and if your using the DOM tree, corresponding nodes are
3987 generated. Too approach can be taken:
3988 <ol>
3989 <li>lazy one, use the compatibility call
3990 <strong>xmlKeepBlanksDefault(0)</strong> but be aware that you are
3991 relying on a special (and possibly broken) set of heuristics of
3992 libxml to detect ignorable blanks. Don't complain if it breaks or
3993 make your application not 100% clean w.r.t. to it's input.</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00003994 <li>the Right Way: change you code to accept possibly insignificant
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003995 blanks characters, or have your tree populated with weird blank text
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00003996 nodes. You can spot them using the commodity function
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00003997 <strong>xmlIsBlankNode(node)</strong> returning 1 for such blank
3998 nodes.</li>
3999 </ol>
4000 <p>Note also that with the new default the output functions don't add any
4001 extra indentation when saving a tree in order to be able to round trip
4002 (read and save) without inflating the document with extra formatting
4003 chars.</p>
4004 </li>
4005 <li>The include path has changed to $prefix/libxml/ and the includes
4006 themselves uses this new prefix in includes instructions... If you are
4007 using (as expected) the
4008 <pre>xml2-config --cflags</pre>
4009 <p>output to generate you compile commands this will probably work out of
4010 the box</p>
4011 </li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00004012 <li>xmlDetectCharEncoding takes an extra argument indicating the length in
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00004013 byte of the head of the document available for character detection.</li>
4014</ol>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00004015
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00004016<h3>Ensuring both libxml-1.x and libxml-2.x compatibility</h3>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00004017
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00004018<p>Two new version of libxml (1.8.11) and libxml2 (2.3.4) have been released
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00004019to allow smooth upgrade of existing libxml v1code while retaining
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00004020compatibility. They offers the following:</p>
4021<ol>
4022 <li>similar include naming, one should use
4023 <strong>#include&lt;libxml/...&gt;</strong> in both cases.</li>
4024 <li>similar identifiers defined via macros for the child and root fields:
4025 respectively <strong>xmlChildrenNode</strong> and
4026 <strong>xmlRootNode</strong></li>
4027 <li>a new macro <strong>LIBXML_TEST_VERSION</strong> which should be
4028 inserted once in the client code</li>
4029</ol>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00004030
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00004031<p>So the roadmap to upgrade your existing libxml applications is the
4032following:</p>
4033<ol>
4034 <li>install the libxml-1.8.8 (and libxml-devel-1.8.8) packages</li>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00004035 <li>find all occurrences where the xmlDoc <strong>root</strong> field is
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00004036 used and change it to <strong>xmlRootNode</strong></li>
Daniel Veillardc0801af2002-05-28 16:28:42 +00004037 <li>similarly find all occurrences where the xmlNode
4038 <strong>childs</strong> field is used and change it to
4039 <strong>xmlChildrenNode</strong></li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00004040 <li>add a <strong>LIBXML_TEST_VERSION</strong> macro somewhere in your
4041 <strong>main()</strong> or in the library init entry point</li>
4042 <li>Recompile, check compatibility, it should still work</li>
Daniel Veillardc0801af2002-05-28 16:28:42 +00004043 <li>Change your configure script to look first for xml2-config and fall
4044 back using xml-config . Use the --cflags and --libs output of the command
4045 as the Include and Linking parameters needed to use libxml.</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00004046 <li>install libxml2-2.3.x and libxml2-devel-2.3.x (libxml-1.8.y and
4047 libxml-devel-1.8.y can be kept simultaneously)</li>
4048 <li>remove your config.cache, relaunch your configuration mechanism, and
4049 recompile, if steps 2 and 3 were done right it should compile as-is</li>
4050 <li>Test that your application is still running correctly, if not this may
4051 be due to extra empty nodes due to formating spaces being kept in libxml2
4052 contrary to libxml1, in that case insert xmlKeepBlanksDefault(1) in your
4053 code before calling the parser (next to
4054 <strong>LIBXML_TEST_VERSION</strong> is a fine place).</li>
4055</ol>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00004056
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00004057<p>Following those steps should work. It worked for some of my own code.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00004058
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00004059<p>Let me put some emphasis on the fact that there is far more changes from
4060libxml 1.x to 2.x than the ones you may have to patch for. The overall code
4061has been considerably cleaned up and the conformance to the XML specification
4062has been drastically improved too. Don't take those changes as an excuse to
4063not upgrade, it may cost a lot on the long term ...</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00004064
Daniel Veillard52dcab32001-10-30 12:51:17 +00004065<h2><a name="Thread">Thread safety</a></h2>
4066
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00004067<p>Starting with 2.4.7, libxml2 makes provisions to ensure that concurrent
Daniel Veillard52dcab32001-10-30 12:51:17 +00004068threads can safely work in parallel parsing different documents. There is
4069however a couple of things to do to ensure it:</p>
4070<ul>
4071 <li>configure the library accordingly using the --with-threads options</li>
4072 <li>call xmlInitParser() in the "main" thread before using any of the
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00004073 libxml2 API (except possibly selecting a different memory allocator)</li>
Daniel Veillard52dcab32001-10-30 12:51:17 +00004074</ul>
4075
4076<p>Note that the thread safety cannot be ensured for multiple threads sharing
4077the same document, the locking must be done at the application level, libxml
4078exports a basic mutex and reentrant mutexes API in &lt;libxml/threads.h&gt;.
4079The parts of the library checked for thread safety are:</p>
4080<ul>
4081 <li>concurrent loading</li>
4082 <li>file access resolution</li>
4083 <li>catalog access</li>
4084 <li>catalog building</li>
4085 <li>entities lookup/accesses</li>
4086 <li>validation</li>
4087 <li>global variables per-thread override</li>
4088 <li>memory handling</li>
4089</ul>
4090
4091<p>XPath is supposed to be thread safe now, but this wasn't tested
4092seriously.</p>
4093
Daniel Veillard35008381999-10-25 13:15:52 +00004094<h2><a name="DOM"></a><a name="Principles">DOM Principles</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00004095
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00004096<p><a href="http://www.w3.org/DOM/">DOM</a> stands for the <em>Document
4097Object Model</em>; this is an API for accessing XML or HTML structured
4098documents. Native support for DOM in Gnome is on the way (module gnome-dom),
4099and will be based on gnome-xml. This will be a far cleaner interface to
4100manipulate XML files within Gnome since it won't expose the internal
4101structure.</p>
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004102
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +00004103<p>The current DOM implementation on top of libxml2 is the <a
Daniel Veillarda47fb3d2001-03-25 17:23:49 +00004104href="http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/gdome2/">gdome2 Gnome module</a>, this
4105is a full DOM interface, thanks to Paolo Casarini, check the <a
4106href="http://www.cs.unibo.it/~casarini/gdome2/">Gdome2 homepage</a> for more
4107informations.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00004108
Daniel Veillard35008381999-10-25 13:15:52 +00004109<h2><a name="Example"></a><a name="real">A real example</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00004110
4111<p>Here is a real size example, where the actual content of the application
4112data is not kept in the DOM tree but uses internal structures. It is based on
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004113a proposal to keep a database of jobs related to Gnome, with an XML based
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00004114storage structure. Here is an <a href="gjobs.xml">XML encoded jobs
4115base</a>:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004116<pre>&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
4117&lt;gjob:Helping xmlns:gjob="http://www.gnome.org/some-location"&gt;
4118 &lt;gjob:Jobs&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004119
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004120 &lt;gjob:Job&gt;
4121 &lt;gjob:Project ID="3"/&gt;
4122 &lt;gjob:Application&gt;GBackup&lt;/gjob:Application&gt;
4123 &lt;gjob:Category&gt;Development&lt;/gjob:Category&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004124
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004125 &lt;gjob:Update&gt;
4126 &lt;gjob:Status&gt;Open&lt;/gjob:Status&gt;
4127 &lt;gjob:Modified&gt;Mon, 07 Jun 1999 20:27:45 -0400 MET DST&lt;/gjob:Modified&gt;
4128 &lt;gjob:Salary&gt;USD 0.00&lt;/gjob:Salary&gt;
4129 &lt;/gjob:Update&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004130
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004131 &lt;gjob:Developers&gt;
4132 &lt;gjob:Developer&gt;
4133 &lt;/gjob:Developer&gt;
4134 &lt;/gjob:Developers&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004135
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004136 &lt;gjob:Contact&gt;
4137 &lt;gjob:Person&gt;Nathan Clemons&lt;/gjob:Person&gt;
4138 &lt;gjob:Email&gt;nathan@windsofstorm.net&lt;/gjob:Email&gt;
4139 &lt;gjob:Company&gt;
4140 &lt;/gjob:Company&gt;
4141 &lt;gjob:Organisation&gt;
4142 &lt;/gjob:Organisation&gt;
4143 &lt;gjob:Webpage&gt;
4144 &lt;/gjob:Webpage&gt;
4145 &lt;gjob:Snailmail&gt;
4146 &lt;/gjob:Snailmail&gt;
4147 &lt;gjob:Phone&gt;
4148 &lt;/gjob:Phone&gt;
4149 &lt;/gjob:Contact&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004150
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004151 &lt;gjob:Requirements&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004152 The program should be released as free software, under the GPL.
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004153 &lt;/gjob:Requirements&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004154
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004155 &lt;gjob:Skills&gt;
4156 &lt;/gjob:Skills&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004157
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004158 &lt;gjob:Details&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004159 A GNOME based system that will allow a superuser to configure
4160 compressed and uncompressed files and/or file systems to be backed
4161 up with a supported media in the system. This should be able to
4162 perform via find commands generating a list of files that are passed
4163 to tar, dd, cpio, cp, gzip, etc., to be directed to the tape machine
4164 or via operations performed on the filesystem itself. Email
4165 notification and GUI status display very important.
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004166 &lt;/gjob:Details&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004167
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004168 &lt;/gjob:Job&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004169
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004170 &lt;/gjob:Jobs&gt;
4171&lt;/gjob:Helping&gt;</pre>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00004172
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00004173<p>While loading the XML file into an internal DOM tree is a matter of
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00004174calling only a couple of functions, browsing the tree to gather the data and
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00004175generate the internal structures is harder, and more error prone.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00004176
4177<p>The suggested principle is to be tolerant with respect to the input
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00004178structure. For example, the ordering of the attributes is not significant,
4179the XML specification is clear about it. It's also usually a good idea not to
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +00004180depend on the order of the children of a given node, unless it really makes
4181things harder. Here is some code to parse the information for a person:</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00004182<pre>/*
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004183 * A person record
4184 */
4185typedef struct person {
4186 char *name;
4187 char *email;
4188 char *company;
4189 char *organisation;
4190 char *smail;
4191 char *webPage;
4192 char *phone;
4193} person, *personPtr;
4194
4195/*
4196 * And the code needed to parse it
4197 */
4198personPtr parsePerson(xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNsPtr ns, xmlNodePtr cur) {
4199 personPtr ret = NULL;
4200
4201DEBUG("parsePerson\n");
4202 /*
4203 * allocate the struct
4204 */
4205 ret = (personPtr) malloc(sizeof(person));
4206 if (ret == NULL) {
4207 fprintf(stderr,"out of memory\n");
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00004208 return(NULL);
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004209 }
4210 memset(ret, 0, sizeof(person));
4211
4212 /* We don't care what the top level element name is */
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004213 cur = cur-&gt;xmlChildrenNode;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004214 while (cur != NULL) {
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004215 if ((!strcmp(cur-&gt;name, "Person")) &amp;&amp; (cur-&gt;ns == ns))
4216 ret-&gt;name = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, cur-&gt;xmlChildrenNode, 1);
4217 if ((!strcmp(cur-&gt;name, "Email")) &amp;&amp; (cur-&gt;ns == ns))
4218 ret-&gt;email = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, cur-&gt;xmlChildrenNode, 1);
4219 cur = cur-&gt;next;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004220 }
4221
4222 return(ret);
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00004223}</pre>
4224
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00004225<p>Here are a couple of things to notice:</p>
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004226<ul>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +00004227 <li>Usually a recursive parsing style is the more convenient one: XML data
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00004228 is by nature subject to repetitive constructs and usually exhibits highly
4229 structured patterns.</li>
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00004230 <li>The two arguments of type <em>xmlDocPtr</em> and <em>xmlNsPtr</em>,
4231 i.e. the pointer to the global XML document and the namespace reserved to
4232 the application. Document wide information are needed for example to
4233 decode entities and it's a good coding practice to define a namespace for
4234 your application set of data and test that the element and attributes
4235 you're analyzing actually pertains to your application space. This is
4236 done by a simple equality test (cur-&gt;ns == ns).</li>
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +00004237 <li>To retrieve text and attributes value, you can use the function
4238 <em>xmlNodeListGetString</em> to gather all the text and entity reference
4239 nodes generated by the DOM output and produce an single text string.</li>
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004240</ul>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00004241
4242<p>Here is another piece of code used to parse another level of the
4243structure:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004244<pre>#include &lt;libxml/tree.h&gt;
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +00004245/*
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004246 * a Description for a Job
4247 */
4248typedef struct job {
4249 char *projectID;
4250 char *application;
4251 char *category;
4252 personPtr contact;
4253 int nbDevelopers;
4254 personPtr developers[100]; /* using dynamic alloc is left as an exercise */
4255} job, *jobPtr;
4256
4257/*
4258 * And the code needed to parse it
4259 */
4260jobPtr parseJob(xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNsPtr ns, xmlNodePtr cur) {
4261 jobPtr ret = NULL;
4262
4263DEBUG("parseJob\n");
4264 /*
4265 * allocate the struct
4266 */
4267 ret = (jobPtr) malloc(sizeof(job));
4268 if (ret == NULL) {
4269 fprintf(stderr,"out of memory\n");
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00004270 return(NULL);
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004271 }
4272 memset(ret, 0, sizeof(job));
4273
4274 /* We don't care what the top level element name is */
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004275 cur = cur-&gt;xmlChildrenNode;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004276 while (cur != NULL) {
4277
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004278 if ((!strcmp(cur-&gt;name, "Project")) &amp;&amp; (cur-&gt;ns == ns)) {
4279 ret-&gt;projectID = xmlGetProp(cur, "ID");
4280 if (ret-&gt;projectID == NULL) {
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00004281 fprintf(stderr, "Project has no ID\n");
4282 }
4283 }
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +00004284 if ((!strcmp(cur-&gt;name, "Application")) &amp;&amp; (cur-&gt;ns == ns))
4285 ret-&gt;application = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, cur-&gt;xmlChildrenNode, 1);
4286 if ((!strcmp(cur-&gt;name, "Category")) &amp;&amp; (cur-&gt;ns == ns))
4287 ret-&gt;category = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, cur-&gt;xmlChildrenNode, 1);
4288 if ((!strcmp(cur-&gt;name, "Contact")) &amp;&amp; (cur-&gt;ns == ns))
4289 ret-&gt;contact = parsePerson(doc, ns, cur);
4290 cur = cur-&gt;next;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004291 }
4292
4293 return(ret);
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00004294}</pre>
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +00004295
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +00004296<p>Once you are used to it, writing this kind of code is quite simple, but
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00004297boring. Ultimately, it could be possible to write stubbers taking either C
Daniel Veillard3d6ae1c2001-08-15 13:12:39 +00004298data structure definitions, a set of XML examples or an XML DTD and produce
4299the code needed to import and export the content between C data and XML
4300storage. This is left as an exercise to the reader :-)</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00004301
Daniel Veillard6f0adb52000-07-03 11:41:26 +00004302<p>Feel free to use <a href="example/gjobread.c">the code for the full C
4303parsing example</a> as a template, it is also available with Makefile in the
4304Gnome CVS base under gnome-xml/example</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +00004305
Daniel Veillardc310d562000-06-23 18:32:15 +00004306<h2><a name="Contributi">Contributions</a></h2>
4307<ul>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +00004308 <li>Bjorn Reese, William Brack and Thomas Broyer have provided a number of
4309 patches, Gary Pennington worked on the validation API, threading support
4310 and Solaris port.</li>
4311 <li>John Fleck helps maintaining the documentation and man pages.</li>
Daniel Veillard7b4b2f92003-01-06 13:11:20 +00004312 <li><a href="mailto:igor@zlatkovic.com">Igor Zlatkovic</a> is now the
4313 maintainer of the Windows port, <a
4314 href="http://www.zlatkovic.com/projects/libxml/index.html">he provides
4315 binaries</a></li>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00004316 <li><a href="mailto:Gary.Pennington@sun.com">Gary Pennington</a> provides
4317 <a href="http://garypennington.net/libxml2/">Solaris binaries</a></li>
Daniel Veillarde356c282001-03-10 12:32:04 +00004318 <li><a
4319 href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/2001-March/msg00014.html">Matt
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +00004320 Sergeant</a> developed <a
4321 href="http://axkit.org/download/">XML::LibXSLT</a>, a Perl wrapper for
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00004322 libxml2/libxslt as part of the <a href="http://axkit.com/">AxKit XML
4323 application server</a></li>
4324 <li><a href="mailto:fnatter@gmx.net">Felix Natter</a> and <a
4325 href="mailto:geertk@ai.rug.nl">Geert Kloosterman</a> provide <a
Daniel Veillardca989762001-06-23 17:39:29 +00004326 href="libxml-doc.el">an emacs module</a> to lookup libxml(2) functions
Daniel Veillard3f6f7f62000-06-30 17:58:25 +00004327 documentation</li>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +00004328 <li><a href="mailto:sherwin@nlm.nih.gov">Ziying Sherwin</a> provided <a
4329 href="http://xmlsoft.org/messages/0488.html">man pages</a></li>
Daniel Veillard5168dbf2001-07-07 00:18:23 +00004330 <li>there is a module for <a
4331 href="http://acs-misc.sourceforge.net/nsxml.html">libxml/libxslt support
4332 in OpenNSD/AOLServer</a></li>
Daniel Veillard2d347fa2002-03-17 10:34:11 +00004333 <li><a href="mailto:dkuhlman@cutter.rexx.com">Dave Kuhlman</a> provided the
4334 first version of libxml/libxslt <a
4335 href="http://www.rexx.com/~dkuhlman">wrappers for Python</a></li>
Daniel Veillard1aadc442001-11-28 13:10:32 +00004336 <li>Petr Kozelka provides <a
4337 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/libxml2-pas">Pascal units to glue
4338 libxml2</a> with Kylix and Delphi and other Pascal compilers</li>
Daniel Veillard2d347fa2002-03-17 10:34:11 +00004339 <li><a href="mailto:aleksey@aleksey.com">Aleksey Sanin</a> implemented the
4340 <a href="http://www.w3.org/Signature/">XML Canonicalization and XML
4341 Digital Signature</a> <a
4342 href="http://www.aleksey.com/xmlsec/">implementations for libxml2</a></li>
Daniel Veillard17bed982003-02-24 20:11:43 +00004343 <li><a href="mailto:Steve.Ball@zveno.com">Steve Ball</a>, <a
4344 href="http://www.zveno.com/">Zveno</a> and contributors maintain <a
4345 href="http://tclxml.sourceforge.net/">tcl bindings for libxml2 and
4346 libxslt</a>, as well as <a
4347 href="http://tclxml.sf.net/tkxmllint.html">tkxmllint</a> a GUI for
4348 xmllint and <a href="http://tclxml.sf.net/tkxsltproc.html">tkxsltproc</a>
4349 a GUI for xsltproc.</li>
Daniel Veillardc310d562000-06-23 18:32:15 +00004350</ul>
4351
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +00004352<p></p>
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +00004353</body>
4354</html>