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blob: dd1470be82e2249feeb8f818e70e6726282798fa [file] [log] [blame]
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +0000[diff] [blame]1<html>
2<head>
Daniel Veillardec78c0f2000-08-25 10:25:23 +0000[diff] [blame]3 <title>The XML C library for Gnome</title>
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +0000[diff] [blame]4 <meta name="GENERATOR" content="amaya V4.1">
Daniel Veillardb24054a1999-12-18 15:32:46 +0000[diff] [blame]5 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html">
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +0000[diff] [blame]6</head>
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +0000[diff] [blame]7
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]8<body bgcolor="#ffffff">
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]9<p><a href="http://www.gnome.org/"><img src="smallfootonly.gif"
10alt="Gnome Logo"></a><a href="http://www.w3.org/Status"><img src="w3c.png"
Daniel Veillardb370a742001-06-09 16:58:47 +0000[diff] [blame]11alt="W3C Logo"></a><a href="http://www.redhat.com"><img src="redhat.gif"
12alt="Red Hat Logo"></a></p>
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +0000[diff] [blame]13
Daniel Veillardec78c0f2000-08-25 10:25:23 +0000[diff] [blame]14<h1 align="center">The XML C library for Gnome</h1>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]15
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]16<h2 style="text-align: center">libxml, a.k.a. gnome-xml</h2>
17
18<p></p>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]19<ul>
20 <li><a href="#Introducti">Introduction</a></li>
21 <li><a href="#Documentat">Documentation</a></li>
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +0000[diff] [blame]22 <li><a href="#Reporting">Reporting bugs and getting help</a></li>
23 <li><a href="#help">how to help</a></li>
Daniel Veillard10a2c651999-12-12 13:03:50 +0000[diff] [blame]24 <li><a href="#Downloads">Downloads</a></li>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]25 <li><a href="#News">News</a></li>
26 <li><a href="#XML">XML</a></li>
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +0000[diff] [blame]27 <li><a href="#XSLT">XSLT</a></li>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]28 <li><a href="#tree">The tree output</a></li>
29 <li><a href="#interface">The SAX interface</a></li>
30 <li><a href="#library">The XML library interfaces</a>
31 <ul>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]32 <li><a href="#Invoking">Invoking the parser: the pull way</a></li>
33 <li><a href="#Invoking">Invoking the parser: the push way</a></li>
34 <li><a href="#Invoking2">Invoking the parser: the SAX interface</a></li>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]35 <li><a href="#Building">Building a tree from scratch</a></li>
36 <li><a href="#Traversing">Traversing the tree</a></li>
37 <li><a href="#Modifying">Modifying the tree</a></li>
38 <li><a href="#Saving">Saving the tree</a></li>
39 <li><a href="#Compressio">Compression</a></li>
40 </ul>
41 </li>
42 <li><a href="#Entities">Entities or no entities</a></li>
43 <li><a href="#Namespaces">Namespaces</a></li>
44 <li><a href="#Validation">Validation</a></li>
45 <li><a href="#Principles">DOM principles</a></li>
46 <li><a href="#real">A real example</a></li>
Daniel Veillard96984452000-08-31 13:50:12 +0000[diff] [blame]47 <li><a href="#Contributi">Contributions</a></li>
48</ul>
49
50<p>Separate documents:</p>
51<ul>
52 <li><a href="upgrade.html">upgrade instructions for migrating to
53 libxml2</a></li>
54 <li><a href="encoding.html">libxml Internationalization support</a></li>
55 <li><a href="xmlio.html">libxml Input/Output interfaces</a></li>
Daniel Veillard189446d2000-10-13 10:23:06 +0000[diff] [blame]56 <li><a href="xmlmem.html">libxml Memory interfaces</a></li>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000[diff] [blame]57 <li><a href="xmldtd.html">a short introduction about DTDs and
58 libxml</a></li>
Daniel Veillard6e6a6cc2001-02-15 15:55:44 +0000[diff] [blame]59 <li><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/">the libxslt page</a></li>
Daniel Veillard7b06bcb2001-06-22 16:03:51 +0000[diff] [blame]60 <li><a href="http://www.cs.unibo.it/~casarini/gdome2/">the gdome2 page: a
61 standard DOM interface for libxml2</a></li>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]62</ul>
63
64<h2><a name="Introducti">Introduction</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]65
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]66<p>This document describes libxml, the <a
Daniel Veillardec78c0f2000-08-25 10:25:23 +0000[diff] [blame]67href="http://www.w3.org/XML/">XML</a> C library developped for the <a
68href="http://www.gnome.org/">Gnome</a> project. <a
69href="http://www.w3.org/XML/">XML is a standard</a> for building tag-based
70structured documents/data.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]71
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]72<p>Here are some key points about libxml:</p>
73<ul>
Daniel Veillard189446d2000-10-13 10:23:06 +0000[diff] [blame]74 <li>Libxml exports Push and Pull type parser interfaces for both XML and
75 HTML.</li>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]76 <li>Libxml can do DTD validation at parse time, using a parsed document
77 instance, or with an arbitrary DTD.</li>
78 <li>Libxml now includes nearly complete <a
Daniel Veillard189446d2000-10-13 10:23:06 +0000[diff] [blame]79 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath">XPath</a> and <a
Daniel Veillard0c069222000-10-21 09:25:52 +0000[diff] [blame]80 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr">XPointer</a> implementations.</li>
Daniel Veillardec78c0f2000-08-25 10:25:23 +0000[diff] [blame]81 <li>It is written in plain C, making as few assumptions as possible, and
Daniel Veillard189446d2000-10-13 10:23:06 +0000[diff] [blame]82 sticking closely to ANSI C/POSIX for easy embedding. Works on
Daniel Veillardab8500d2000-10-15 21:06:19 +0000[diff] [blame]83 Linux/Unix/Windows, ported to a number of other platforms.</li>
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]84 <li>Basic support for HTTP and FTP client allowing aplications to fetch
85 remote resources</li>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]86 <li>The design is modular, most of the extensions can be compiled out.</li>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]87 <li>The internal document repesentation is as close as possible to the <a
88 href="http://www.w3.org/DOM/">DOM</a> interfaces.</li>
89 <li>Libxml also has a <a href="http://www.megginson.com/SAX/index.html">SAX
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]90 like interface</a>; the interface is designed to be compatible with <a
91 href="http://www.jclark.com/xml/expat.html">Expat</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +0000[diff] [blame]92 <li>This library is released both under the <a
93 href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-software-19980720.html">W3C
Daniel Veillard189446d2000-10-13 10:23:06 +0000[diff] [blame]94 IPR</a> and the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html">GNU
95 LGPL</a>. Use either at your convenience, basically this should make
96 everybody happy, if not, drop me a mail.</li>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]97</ul>
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +0000[diff] [blame]98
Daniel Veillarde0c1d722001-03-21 10:28:36 +0000[diff] [blame]99<p>Warning: unless you are forced to because your application links with a
100Gnome library requiring it, <strong><span
101style="background-color: #FF0000">Do Not Use libxml1</span></strong>, use
102libxml2</p>
103
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]104<h2><a name="Documentat">Documentation</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]105
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]106<p>There are some on-line resources about using libxml:</p>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]107<ol>
Daniel Veillard365e13b2000-07-02 07:56:37 +0000[diff] [blame]108 <li>Check the <a href="FAQ.html">FAQ</a></li>
Daniel Veillardc19fccc2000-07-03 11:52:01 +0000[diff] [blame]109 <li>Check the <a href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-lib.html">extensive
Daniel Veillard8c6d6af2000-08-25 17:14:13 +0000[diff] [blame]110 documentation</a> automatically extracted from code comments (using <a
111 href="http://cvs.gnome.org/bonsai/rview.cgi?cvsroot=/cvs/gnome&amp;dir=gtk-doc">gtk
112 doc</a>).</li>
Daniel Veillard8d869642000-07-14 12:12:59 +0000[diff] [blame]113 <li>Look at the documentation about <a href="encoding.html">libxml
114 internationalization support</a></li>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]115 <li>This page provides a global overview and <a href="#real">some
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]116 examples</a> on how to use libxml.</li>
117 <li><a href="mailto:james@daa.com.au">James Henstridge</a> wrote <a
118 href="http://www.daa.com.au/~james/gnome/xml-sax/xml-sax.html">some nice
119 documentation</a> explaining how to use the libxml SAX interface.</li>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]120 <li>George Lebl wrote <a
121 href="http://www-4.ibm.com/software/developer/library/gnome3/">an article
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]122 for IBM developerWorks</a> about using libxml.</li>
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +0000[diff] [blame]123 <li>Check <a href="http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/gnome-xml/TODO">the TODO
124 file</a></li>
125 <li>Read the <a href="upgrade.html">1.x to 2.x upgrade path</a>. If you are
126 starting a new project using libxml you should really use the 2.x
127 version.</li>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]128 <li>And don't forget to look at the <a href="/messages/">mailing-list
Daniel Veillardc310d562000-06-23 18:32:15 +0000[diff] [blame]129 archive</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]130</ol>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]131
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +0000[diff] [blame]132<h2><a name="Reporting">Reporting bugs and getting help</a></h2>
Daniel Veillard4c3a2031999-11-19 17:46:26 +0000[diff] [blame]133
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]134<p>Well, bugs or missing features are always possible, and I will make a point
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +0000[diff] [blame]135of fixing them in a timely fashion. The best way to report a bug is to use the
Daniel Veillard81781102001-03-07 09:31:47 +0000[diff] [blame]136<a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=libxml">Gnome bug
137tracking database</a> (make sure to use the "libxml" module name). I look at
138reports there regularly and it's good to have a reminder when a bug is still
Daniel Veillarda41123c2001-04-22 19:31:20 +0000[diff] [blame]139open. Check the <a
140href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/bugwritinghelp.html">instructions on reporting
141bugs</a> and be sure to specify that the bug is for the package libxml.</p>
Daniel Veillard4c3a2031999-11-19 17:46:26 +0000[diff] [blame]142
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]143<p>There is also a mailing-list <a
Daniel Veillard3197f162001-04-04 00:40:08 +0000[diff] [blame]144href="mailto:xml@gnome.org">xml@gnome.org</a> for libxml, with an <a
145href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/">on-line archive</a> (<a
146href="http://xmlsoft.org/messages">old</a>). To subscribe to this list, please
147visit the <a href="http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/xml">associated
Daniel Veillardf5498f32001-06-25 15:08:36 +0000[diff] [blame]148Web</a> page and follow the instructions. <strong>Do not send code, I won't
Daniel Veillard234547b2001-07-05 09:46:10 +0000[diff] [blame]149debug it</strong> (but patches are really appreciated!).</p>
150
151<p>Check the following too before posting:</p>
152<ul>
153 <li>make sure you are <a href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/">using a recent
154 version</a>, and that the problem still shows up in those</li>
155 <li>check the <a href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/">list
156 archives</a> to see if the problem was reported already, in this case
Daniel Veillard5b43fde2001-07-05 23:31:40 +0000[diff] [blame]157 there is probably a fix available, similary check the <a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=libxml&amp;product=libxslt&amp;bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&amp;bug_status=NEW&amp;bug_status=ASSIGNED&amp;bug_status=NEEDINFO&amp;bug_status=REOPENED&amp;bug_status=RESOLVED&amp;bug_status=VERIFIED&amp;email1=&amp;emailtype1=substring&amp;emailassigned_to1=1&amp;emailreporter1=1&amp;emailcc1=1&amp;emaillongdesc1=1&amp;email2=&amp;emailtype2=substring&amp;emailassigned_to2=1&amp;emailreporter2=1&amp;emailcc2=1&amp;emaillongdesc2=1&amp;changedin=&amp;chfieldfrom=&amp;chfieldto=Now&amp;chfieldvalue=&amp;short_desc=&amp;short_desc_type=substring&amp;long_desc=&amp;long_desc_type=substring&amp;bug_file_loc=&amp;bug_file_loc_type=substring&amp;status_whiteboard=&amp;status_whiteboard_type=substring&amp;keywords=&amp;keywords_type=anywords&amp;op_sys_details=&amp;op_sys_details_type=substring&amp;version_details=&amp;version_details_type=substring&amp;cmdtype=doit&amp;newqueryname=&amp;order=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&amp;form_name=query">registered open
158 bugs</a></li>
Daniel Veillard234547b2001-07-05 09:46:10 +0000[diff] [blame]159 <li>make sure you can reproduce the bug with xmllint or one of the test
160 programs found in source in the distribution</li>
161 <li>Please send the command showing the error as well as the input (as an
162 attachement)</li>
163</ul>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]164
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]165<p>Alternatively, you can just send the bug to the <a
Daniel Veillard33a67802001-03-07 09:44:02 +0000[diff] [blame]166href="mailto:xml@gnome.org">xml@gnome.org</a> list; if it's really libxml
Daniel Veillard6e93c4a2001-06-05 20:57:42 +0000[diff] [blame]167related I will approve it.. Please do not send me mail directly especially for
168portability problem, it makes things really harder to track and in some cases
169I'm not the best person to answer a given question, ask the list instead.</p>
Daniel Veillard4c3a2031999-11-19 17:46:26 +0000[diff] [blame]170
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]171<p>Of course, bugs reported with a suggested patch for fixing them will
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +0000[diff] [blame]172probably be processed faster.</p>
173
174<p>If you're looking for help, a quick look at <a
175href="http://xmlsoft.org/messages/#407">the list archive</a> may actually
176provide the answer, I usually send source samples when answering libxml usage
Daniel Veillard6f0adb52000-07-03 11:41:26 +0000[diff] [blame]177questions. The <a href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/book1.html">auto-generated
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +0000[diff] [blame]178documentantion</a> is not as polished as I would like (i need to learn more
179about Docbook), but it's a good starting point.</p>
180
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +0000[diff] [blame]181<h2><a name="help">How to help</a></h2>
182
183<p>You can help the project in various ways, the best thing to do first is to
184subscribe to the mailing-list as explained before, check the <a
185href="http://xmlsoft.org/messages/">archives </a>and the <a
186href="http://bugs.gnome.org/db/pa/lgnome-xml.html">Gnome bug
187database:</a>:</p>
188<ol>
189 <li>provide patches when you find problems</li>
Daniel Veillard189446d2000-10-13 10:23:06 +0000[diff] [blame]190 <li>provide the diffs when you port libxml to a new platform. They may not
Daniel Veillardab8500d2000-10-15 21:06:19 +0000[diff] [blame]191 be integrated in all cases but help pinpointing portability problems
192 and</li>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]193 <li>provide documentation fixes (either as patches to the code comments or
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +0000[diff] [blame]194 as HTML diffs).</li>
195 <li>provide new documentations pieces (translations, examples, etc ...)</li>
196 <li>Check the TODO file and try to close one of the items</li>
197 <li>take one of the points raised in the archive or the bug database and
Daniel Veillard33a67802001-03-07 09:44:02 +0000[diff] [blame]198 provide a fix. <a href="mailto:Daniel.Veillard@imag.fr">Get in touch with
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +0000[diff] [blame]199 me </a>before to avoid synchronization problems and check that the
200 suggested fix will fit in nicely :-)</li>
201</ol>
202
Daniel Veillard10a2c651999-12-12 13:03:50 +0000[diff] [blame]203<h2><a name="Downloads">Downloads</a></h2>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]204
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]205<p>The latest versions of libxml can be found on <a
Daniel Veillard20c8cf22001-06-26 22:47:36 +0000[diff] [blame]206href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/">xmlsoft.org</a> (<a
207href="ftp://speakeasy.rpmfind.net/pub/libxml/">Seattle</a>, <a
208href="ftp://fr.rpmfind.net/pub/libxml/">France</a>) or on the <a
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]209href="ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/MIRRORS.html">Gnome FTP server</a> either
Daniel Veillard10a2c651999-12-12 13:03:50 +0000[diff] [blame]210as a <a href="ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/stable/sources/libxml/">source
Daniel Veillard306be992000-07-03 12:38:45 +0000[diff] [blame]211archive</a> or <a
Daniel Veillarda41123c2001-04-22 19:31:20 +0000[diff] [blame]212href="ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/stable/redhat/i386/libxml/">RPM
213packages</a>. (NOTE that you need both the <a
Daniel Veillardc19fccc2000-07-03 11:52:01 +0000[diff] [blame]214href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/libxml2.html">libxml(2)</a> and <a
215href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/libxml2-devel.html">libxml(2)-devel</a>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]216packages installed to compile applications using libxml.)</p>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]217
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +0000[diff] [blame]218<p><a name="Snapshot">Snapshot:</a></p>
219<ul>
220 <li>Code from the W3C cvs base libxml <a
Daniel Veillard33a67802001-03-07 09:44:02 +0000[diff] [blame]221 href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/cvs-snapshot.tar.gz">cvs-snapshot.tar.gz</a></li>
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +0000[diff] [blame]222 <li>Docs, content of the web site, the list archive included <a
Daniel Veillard33a67802001-03-07 09:44:02 +0000[diff] [blame]223 href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/libxml-docs.tar.gz">libxml-docs.tar.gz</a></li>
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +0000[diff] [blame]224</ul>
225
226<p><a name="Contribs">Contribs:</a></p>
227
228<p>I do accept external contributions, especially if compiling on another
229platform, get in touch with me to upload the package. I will keep them in the
Daniel Veillard33a67802001-03-07 09:44:02 +0000[diff] [blame]230<a href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/contribs/">contrib directory</a></p>
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +0000[diff] [blame]231
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +0000[diff] [blame]232<p>Libxml is also available from CVS:</p>
Daniel Veillard10a2c651999-12-12 13:03:50 +0000[diff] [blame]233<ul>
Daniel Veillard10a2c651999-12-12 13:03:50 +0000[diff] [blame]234 <li><p>The <a
235 href="http://cvs.gnome.org/bonsai/rview.cgi?cvsroot=/cvs/gnome&amp;dir=gnome-xml">Gnome
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]236 CVS base</a>. Check the <a
237 href="http://developer.gnome.org/tools/cvs.html">Gnome CVS Tools</a> page;
238 the CVS module is <b>gnome-xml</b>.</p>
Daniel Veillard10a2c651999-12-12 13:03:50 +0000[diff] [blame]239 </li>
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +0000[diff] [blame]240 <li>The <strong>libxslt</strong> module is also present there</li>
Daniel Veillard10a2c651999-12-12 13:03:50 +0000[diff] [blame]241</ul>
242
243<h2><a name="News">News</a></h2>
244
Daniel Veillard944b5ff1999-12-15 19:08:24 +0000[diff] [blame]245<h3>CVS only : check the <a
246href="http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/gnome-xml/ChangeLog">Changelog</a> file
Daniel Veillard189446d2000-10-13 10:23:06 +0000[diff] [blame]247for a really accurate description</h3>
Daniel Veillardab8500d2000-10-15 21:06:19 +0000[diff] [blame]248
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]249<p>Items floating around but not actively worked on, get in touch with me if
Daniel Veillardab8500d2000-10-15 21:06:19 +0000[diff] [blame]250you want to test those</p>
251<ul>
Daniel Veillard6e6a6cc2001-02-15 15:55:44 +0000[diff] [blame]252 <li>Implementing <a href="http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT">XSLT</a>, this is done as
Daniel Veillard823a77f2001-06-26 23:07:32 +0000[diff] [blame]253 a separate C library on top of libxml called libxslt</li>
Daniel Veillard28929b22000-11-13 18:22:49 +0000[diff] [blame]254 <li>Finishing up <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr">XPointer</a> and <a
255 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude">XInclude</a></li>
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +0000[diff] [blame]256 <li>(seeems working but delayed from release) parsing/import of Docbook SGML
257 docs</li>
Daniel Veillardab8500d2000-10-15 21:06:19 +0000[diff] [blame]258</ul>
259
Daniel Veillard5b43fde2001-07-05 23:31:40 +0000[diff] [blame]260<h3>2.3.14: July 5 2001</h3>
261<ul>
262 <li>fixed some entities problems and reduce mem requirement when substituing
263 them</li>
264 <li>lots of improvements in the XPath queries interpreter can be
265 substancially faster</li>
266 <li>Makefiles and configure cleanups</li>
267 <li>Fixes to XPath variable eval, and compare on empty node set</li>
268 <li>HTML tag closing bug fixed</li>
269 <li>Fixed an URI reference computating problem when validating</li>
270</ul>
271
Daniel Veillard2adbb512001-06-28 16:20:36 +0000[diff] [blame]272<h3>2.3.13: June 28 2001</h3>
273<ul>
274 <li>2.3.12 configure.in was broken as well as the push mode XML parser</li>
275 <li>a few more fixes for compilation on Windows MSC by Yon Derek</li>
276</ul>
277
278<h3>1.8.14: June 28 2001</h3>
279<ul>
280 <li>Zbigniew Chyla gave a patch to use the old XML parser in push mode</li>
281 <li>Small Makefile fix</li>
282</ul>
283
Daniel Veillard11648102001-06-26 16:08:24 +0000[diff] [blame]284<h3>2.3.12: June 26 2001</h3>
285<ul>
286 <li>lots of cleanup</li>
287 <li>a couple of validation fix</li>
288 <li>fixed line number counting</li>
289 <li>fixed serious problems in the XInclude processing</li>
290 <li>added support for UTF8 BOM at beginning of entities</li>
291 <li>fixed a strange gcc optimizer bugs in xpath handling of float, gcc-3.0
292 miscompile uri.c (William), Thomas Leitner provided a fix for the
293 optimizer on Tru64</li>
294 <li>incorporated Yon Derek and Igor Zlatkovic fixes and improvements for
295 compilation on Windows MSC</li>
296 <li>update of libxml-doc.el (Felix Natter)</li>
297 <li>fixed 2 bugs in URI normalization code</li>
298</ul>
299
Daniel Veillarde3c81b52001-06-17 14:50:34 +0000[diff] [blame]300<h3>2.3.11: June 17 2001</h3>
301<ul>
302 <li>updates to trio, Makefiles and configure should fix some portability
303 problems (alpha)</li>
304 <li>fixed some HTML serialization problems (pre, script, and block/inline
305 handling), added encoding aware APIs, cleanup of this code</li>
306 <li>added xmlHasNsProp()</li>
307 <li>implemented a specific PI for encoding support in the DocBook SGML
308 parser</li>
309 <li>some XPath fixes (-Infinity, / as a function parameter and namespaces
310 node selection)</li>
311 <li>fixed a performance problem and an error in the validation code</li>
312 <li>fixed XInclude routine to implement the recursive behaviour</li>
313 <li>fixed xmlFreeNode problem when libxml is included statically twice</li>
314 <li>added --version to xmllint for bug reports</li>
315</ul>
316
Daniel Veillard2e4f1882001-06-01 10:11:57 +0000[diff] [blame]317<h3>2.3.10: June 1 2001</h3>
318<ul>
319 <li>fixed the SGML catalog support</li>
320 <li>a number of reported bugs got fixed, in XPath, iconv detection, XInclude
321 processing</li>
322 <li>XPath string function should now handle unicode correctly</li>
323</ul>
324
Daniel Veillard4623acd2001-05-19 15:13:15 +0000[diff] [blame]325<h3>2.3.9: May 19 2001</h3>
326
327<p>Lots of bugfixes, and added a basic SGML catalog support:</p>
328<ul>
329 <li>HTML push bugfix #54891 and another patch from Jonas Borgström</li>
330 <li>some serious speed optimisation again</li>
331 <li>some documentation cleanups</li>
332 <li>trying to get better linking on solaris (-R)</li>
333 <li>XPath API cleanup from Thomas Broyer</li>
334 <li>Validation bug fixed #54631, added a patch from Gary Pennington, fixed
335 xmlValidGetValidElements()</li>
336 <li>Added an INSTALL file</li>
337 <li>Attribute removal added to API: #54433</li>
338 <li>added a basic support for SGML catalogs</li>
339 <li>fixed xmlKeepBlanksDefault(0) API</li>
340 <li>bugfix in xmlNodeGetLang()</li>
341 <li>fixed a small configure portability problem</li>
342 <li>fixed an inversion of SYSTEM and PUBLIC identifier in HTML document</li>
343</ul>
344
Daniel Veillarda265af72001-05-14 11:13:58 +0000[diff] [blame]345<h3>1.8.13: May 14 2001</h3>
346<ul>
347 <li>bugfixes release of the old libxml1 branch used by Gnome</li>
348</ul>
349
Daniel Veillard3bbbe6f2001-05-03 11:15:37 +0000[diff] [blame]350<h3>2.3.8: May 3 2001</h3>
351<ul>
352 <li>Integrated an SGML DocBook parser for the Gnome project</li>
353 <li>Fixed a few things in the HTML parser</li>
354 <li>Fixed some XPath bugs raised by XSLT use, tried to fix the floating
355 point portability issue</li>
356 <li>Speed improvement (8M/s for SAX, 3M/s for DOM, 1.5M/s for DOM+validation
357 using the XML REC as input and a 700MHz celeron).</li>
358 <li>incorporated more Windows cleanup</li>
359 <li>added xmlSaveFormatFile()</li>
360 <li>fixed problems in copying nodes with entities references (gdome)</li>
361 <li>removed some troubles surrounding the new validation module</li>
362</ul>
363
Daniel Veillarda41123c2001-04-22 19:31:20 +0000[diff] [blame]364<h3>2.3.7: April 22 2001</h3>
365<ul>
366 <li>lots of small bug fixes, corrected XPointer</li>
367 <li>Non determinist content model validation support</li>
368 <li>added xmlDocCopyNode for gdome2</li>
369 <li>revamped the way the HTML parser handles end of tags</li>
370 <li>XPath: corrctions of namespacessupport and number formatting</li>
371 <li>Windows: Igor Zlatkovic patches for MSC compilation</li>
372 <li>HTML ouput fixes from P C Chow and William M. Brack</li>
373 <li>Improved validation speed sensible for DocBook</li>
374 <li>fixed a big bug with ID declared in external parsed entities</li>
375 <li>portability fixes, update of Trio from Bjorn Reese</li>
376</ul>
377
Daniel Veillardafc73112001-04-11 11:51:41 +0000[diff] [blame]378<h3>2.3.6: April 8 2001</h3>
379<ul>
380 <li>Code cleanup using extreme gcc compiler warning options, found and
381 cleared half a dozen potential problem</li>
382 <li>the Eazel team found an XML parser bug</li>
383 <li>cleaned up the user of some of the string formatting function. used the
384 trio library code to provide the one needed when the platform is missing
385 them</li>
386 <li>xpath: removed a memory leak and fixed the predicate evaluation problem,
387 extended the testsuite and cleaned up the result. XPointer seems broken
388 ...</li>
389</ul>
390
Daniel Veillard56a4cb82001-03-24 17:00:36 +0000[diff] [blame]391<h3>2.3.5: Mar 23 2001</h3>
392<ul>
393 <li>Biggest change is separate parsing and evaluation of XPath expressions,
394 there is some new APIs for this too</li>
395 <li>included a number of bug fixes(XML push parser, 51876, notations,
396 52299)</li>
397 <li>Fixed some portability issues</li>
398</ul>
399
Daniel Veillarde356c282001-03-10 12:32:04 +0000[diff] [blame]400<h3>2.3.4: Mar 10 2001</h3>
401<ul>
402 <li>Fixed bugs #51860 and #51861</li>
403 <li>Added a global variable xmlDefaultBufferSize to allow default buffer
404 size to be application tunable.</li>
405 <li>Some cleanup in the validation code, still a bug left and this part
406 should probably be rewritten to support ambiguous content model :-\</li>
407 <li>Fix a couple of serious bugs introduced or raised by changes in 2.3.3
408 parser</li>
409 <li>Fixed another bug in xmlNodeGetContent()</li>
410 <li>Bjorn fixed XPath node collection and Number formatting</li>
411 <li>Fixed a loop reported in the HTML parsing</li>
412 <li>blank space are reported even if the Dtd content model proves that they
413 are formatting spaces, this is for XmL conformance</li>
414</ul>
415
Daniel Veillardb402c072001-03-01 17:28:58 +0000[diff] [blame]416<h3>2.3.3: Mar 1 2001</h3>
417<ul>
418 <li>small change in XPath for XSLT</li>
419 <li>documentation cleanups</li>
420 <li>fix in validation by Gary Pennington</li>
421 <li>serious parsing performances improvements</li>
422</ul>
423
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]424<h3>2.3.2: Feb 24 2001</h3>
Daniel Veillard71681102001-02-24 17:48:53 +0000[diff] [blame]425<ul>
426 <li>chasing XPath bugs, found a bunch, completed some TODO</li>
427 <li>fixed a Dtd parsing bug</li>
428 <li>fixed a bug in xmlNodeGetContent</li>
429 <li>ID/IDREF support partly rewritten by Gary Pennington</li>
430</ul>
431
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]432<h3>2.3.1: Feb 15 2001</h3>
Daniel Veillard6e6a6cc2001-02-15 15:55:44 +0000[diff] [blame]433<ul>
434 <li>some XPath and HTML bug fixes for XSLT</li>
435 <li>small extension of the hash table interfaces for DOM gdome2
436 implementation</li>
437 <li>A few bug fixes</li>
438</ul>
439
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]440<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 +0000[diff] [blame]441<ul>
442 <li>Lots of XPath bug fixes</li>
443 <li>Add a mode with Dtd lookup but without validation error reporting for
444 XSLT</li>
445 <li>Add support for text node without escaping (XSLT)</li>
446 <li>bug fixes for xmlCheckFilename</li>
447 <li>validation code bug fixes from Gary Pennington</li>
448 <li>Patch from Paul D. Smith correcting URI path normalization</li>
449 <li>Patch to allow simultaneous install of libxml-devel and
450 libxml2-devel</li>
451 <li>the example Makefile is now fixed</li>
452 <li>added HTML to the RPM packages</li>
453 <li>tree copying bugfixes</li>
454 <li>updates to Windows makefiles</li>
455 <li>optimisation patch from Bjorn Reese</li>
456</ul>
457
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]458<h3>2.2.11: Jan 4 2001</h3>
Daniel Veillard503b8932001-01-05 06:36:31 +0000[diff] [blame]459<ul>
460 <li>bunch of bug fixes (memory I/O, xpath, ftp/http, ...)</li>
461 <li>added htmlHandleOmittedElem()</li>
462 <li>Applied Bjorn Reese's IPV6 first patch</li>
463 <li>Applied Paul D. Smith patches for validation of XInclude results</li>
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +0000[diff] [blame]464 <li>added XPointer xmlns() new scheme support</li>
Daniel Veillard503b8932001-01-05 06:36:31 +0000[diff] [blame]465</ul>
466
Daniel Veillard2ddd23d2000-11-25 10:42:19 +0000[diff] [blame]467<h3>2.2.10: Nov 25 2000</h3>
Daniel Veillard9d343c42000-11-25 10:12:43 +0000[diff] [blame]468<ul>
469 <li>Fix the Windows problems of 2.2.8</li>
470 <li>integrate OpenVMS patches</li>
471 <li>better handling of some nasty HTML input</li>
472 <li>Improved the XPointer implementation</li>
473 <li>integrate a number of provided patches</li>
474</ul>
475
Daniel Veillard2ddd23d2000-11-25 10:42:19 +0000[diff] [blame]476<h3>2.2.9: Nov 25 2000</h3>
477<ul>
478 <li>erroneous release :-(</li>
479</ul>
480
Daniel Veillard28929b22000-11-13 18:22:49 +0000[diff] [blame]481<h3>2.2.8: Nov 13 2000</h3>
482<ul>
483 <li>First version of <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude">XInclude</a>
484 support</li>
485 <li>Patch in conditional section handling</li>
486 <li>updated MS compiler project</li>
487 <li>fixed some XPath problems</li>
488 <li>added an URI escaping function</li>
489 <li>some other bug fixes</li>
490</ul>
491
492<h3>2.2.7: Oct 31 2000</h3>
493<ul>
494 <li>added message redirection</li>
495 <li>XPath improvements (thanks TOM !)</li>
496 <li>xmlIOParseDTD() added</li>
497 <li>various small fixes in the HTML, URI, HTTP and XPointer support</li>
498 <li>some cleanup of the Makefile, autoconf and the distribution content</li>
499</ul>
500
Daniel Veillard29a11cc2000-10-25 13:32:39 +0000[diff] [blame]501<h3>2.2.6: Oct 25 2000:</h3>
502<ul>
503 <li>Added an hash table module, migrated a number of internal structure to
504 those</li>
505 <li>Fixed a posteriori validation problems</li>
506 <li>HTTP module cleanups</li>
507 <li>HTML parser improvements (tag errors, script/style handling, attribute
508 normalization)</li>
509 <li>coalescing of adjacent text nodes</li>
510 <li>couple of XPath bug fixes, exported the internal API</li>
511</ul>
512
Daniel Veillardab8500d2000-10-15 21:06:19 +0000[diff] [blame]513<h3>2.2.5: Oct 15 2000:</h3>
Daniel Veillard4c3a2031999-11-19 17:46:26 +0000[diff] [blame]514<ul>
Daniel Veillard189446d2000-10-13 10:23:06 +0000[diff] [blame]515 <li>XPointer implementation and testsuite</li>
516 <li>Lot of XPath fixes, added variable and functions registration, more
517 tests</li>
518 <li>Portability fixes, lots of enhancements toward an easy Windows build and
519 release</li>
520 <li>Late validation fixes</li>
521 <li>Integrated a lot of contributed patches</li>
522 <li>added memory management docs</li>
Daniel Veillardab8500d2000-10-15 21:06:19 +0000[diff] [blame]523 <li>a performance problem when using large buffer seems fixed</li>
Daniel Veillard189446d2000-10-13 10:23:06 +0000[diff] [blame]524</ul>
525
526<h3>2.2.4: Oct 1 2000:</h3>
527<ul>
528 <li>main XPath problem fixed</li>
529 <li>Integrated portability patches for Windows</li>
530 <li>Serious bug fixes on the URI and HTML code</li>
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +0000[diff] [blame]531</ul>
532
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +0000[diff] [blame]533<h3>2.2.3: Sep 17 2000</h3>
534<ul>
535 <li>bug fixes</li>
536 <li>cleanup of entity handling code</li>
537 <li>overall review of all loops in the parsers, all sprintf usage has been
538 checked too</li>
539 <li>Far better handling of larges Dtd. Validating against Docbook XML Dtd
540 works smoothly now.</li>
541</ul>
542
543<h3>1.8.10: Sep 6 2000</h3>
544<ul>
545 <li>bug fix release for some Gnome projects</li>
546</ul>
547
548<h3>2.2.2: August 12 2000</h3>
Daniel Veillard786d7c82000-08-12 23:38:57 +0000[diff] [blame]549<ul>
550 <li>mostly bug fixes</li>
Daniel Veillardec78c0f2000-08-25 10:25:23 +0000[diff] [blame]551 <li>started adding routines to access xml parser context options</li>
Daniel Veillard786d7c82000-08-12 23:38:57 +0000[diff] [blame]552</ul>
553
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +0000[diff] [blame]554<h3>2.2.1: July 21 2000</h3>
Daniel Veillarda2679fa2000-07-22 02:38:15 +0000[diff] [blame]555<ul>
556 <li>a purely bug fixes release</li>
557 <li>fixed an encoding support problem when parsing from a memory block</li>
558 <li>fixed a DOCTYPE parsing problem</li>
559 <li>removed a bug in the function allowing to override the memory allocation
560 routines</li>
561</ul>
562
Daniel Veillardd5f97f82000-09-17 16:38:14 +0000[diff] [blame]563<h3>2.2.0: July 14 2000</h3>
Daniel Veillard94e90602000-07-17 14:38:19 +0000[diff] [blame]564<ul>
565 <li>applied a lot of portability fixes</li>
566 <li>better encoding support/cleanup and saving (content is now always
567 encoded in UTF-8)</li>
568 <li>the HTML parser now correctly handles encodings</li>
569 <li>added xmlHasProp()</li>
570 <li>fixed a serious problem with &amp;#38;</li>
571 <li>propagated the fix to FTP client</li>
572 <li>cleanup, bugfixes, etc ...</li>
573 <li>Added a page about <a href="encoding.html">libxml Internationalization
574 support</a></li>
575</ul>
576
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]577<h3>1.8.9: July 9 2000</h3>
578<ul>
579 <li>fixed the spec the RPMs should be better</li>
580 <li>fixed a serious bug in the FTP implementation, released 1.8.9 to solve
581 rpmfind users problem</li>
582</ul>
583
Daniel Veillard6388e172000-07-03 16:07:19 +0000[diff] [blame]584<h3>2.1.1: July 1 2000</h3>
585<ul>
586 <li>fixes a couple of bugs in the 2.1.0 packaging</li>
587 <li>improvements on the HTML parser</li>
588</ul>
589
Daniel Veillard3f6f7f62000-06-30 17:58:25 +0000[diff] [blame]590<h3>2.1.0 and 1.8.8: June 29 2000</h3>
591<ul>
592 <li>1.8.8 is mostly a comodity package for upgrading to libxml2 accoding to
593 <a href="upgrade.html">new instructions</a>. It fixes a nasty problem
594 about &amp;#38; charref parsing</li>
595 <li>2.1.0 also ease the upgrade from libxml v1 to the recent version. it
596 also contains numerous fixes and enhancements:
597 <ul>
598 <li>added xmlStopParser() to stop parsing</li>
599 <li>improved a lot parsing speed when there is large CDATA blocs</li>
600 <li>includes XPath patches provided by Picdar Technology</li>
601 <li>tried to fix as much as possible DtD validation and namespace
602 related problems</li>
603 <li>output to a given encoding has been added/tested</li>
604 <li>lot of various fixes</li>
605 </ul>
606 </li>
607</ul>
608
Daniel Veillarde0aed302000-04-16 08:52:20 +0000[diff] [blame]609<h3>2.0.0: Apr 12 2000</h3>
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +0000[diff] [blame]610<ul>
611 <li>First public release of libxml2. If you are using libxml, it's a good
Daniel Veillarde0aed302000-04-16 08:52:20 +0000[diff] [blame]612 idea to check the 1.x to 2.x upgrade instructions. NOTE: while initally
613 scheduled for Apr 3 the relase occured only on Apr 12 due to massive
614 workload.</li>
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +0000[diff] [blame]615 <li>The include are now located under $prefix/include/libxml (instead of
Daniel Veillarde0aed302000-04-16 08:52:20 +0000[diff] [blame]616 $prefix/include/gnome-xml), they also are referenced by
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]617 <pre>#include &lt;libxml/xxx.h&gt;</pre>
Daniel Veillarde0aed302000-04-16 08:52:20 +0000[diff] [blame]618 <p>instead of</p>
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +0000[diff] [blame]619 <pre>#include "xxx.h"</pre>
620 </li>
Daniel Veillard8f621982000-03-20 13:07:15 +0000[diff] [blame]621 <li>a new URI module for parsing URIs and following strictly RFC 2396</li>
622 <li>the memory allocation routines used by libxml can now be overloaded
623 dynamically by using xmlMemSetup()</li>
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +0000[diff] [blame]624 <li>The previously CVS only tool tester has been renamed
625 <strong>xmllint</strong> and is now installed as part of the libxml2
626 package</li>
Daniel Veillarde0aed302000-04-16 08:52:20 +0000[diff] [blame]627 <li>The I/O interface has been revamped. There is now ways to plug in
628 specific I/O modules, either at the URI scheme detection level using
629 xmlRegisterInputCallbacks() or by passing I/O functions when creating a
630 parser context using xmlCreateIOParserCtxt()</li>
631 <li>there is a C preprocessor macro LIBXML_VERSION providing the version
632 number of the libxml module in use</li>
633 <li>a number of optional features of libxml can now be excluded at configure
634 time (FTP/HTTP/HTML/XPath/Debug)</li>
Daniel Veillardedfb29b2000-03-14 19:59:05 +0000[diff] [blame]635</ul>
636
637<h3>2.0.0beta: Mar 14 2000</h3>
638<ul>
639 <li>This is a first Beta release of libxml version 2</li>
Daniel Veillarde356c282001-03-10 12:32:04 +0000[diff] [blame]640 <li>It's available only from<a href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/">xmlsoft.org
641 FTP</a>, it's packaged as libxml2-2.0.0beta and available as tar and
642 RPMs</li>
Daniel Veillardedfb29b2000-03-14 19:59:05 +0000[diff] [blame]643 <li>This version is now the head in the Gnome CVS base, the old one is
644 available under the tag LIB_XML_1_X</li>
645 <li>This includes a very large set of changes. Froma programmatic point of
646 view applications should not have to be modified too much, check the <a
647 href="upgrade.html">upgrade page</a></li>
648 <li>Some interfaces may changes (especially a bit about encoding).</li>
649 <li>the updates includes:
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +0000[diff] [blame]650 <ul>
Daniel Veillardedfb29b2000-03-14 19:59:05 +0000[diff] [blame]651 <li>fix I18N support. ISO-Latin-x/UTF-8/UTF-16 (nearly) seems correctly
652 handled now</li>
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]653 <li>Better handling of entities, especially well formedness checking and
654 proper PEref extensions in external subsets</li>
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +0000[diff] [blame]655 <li>DTD conditional sections</li>
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]656 <li>Validation now correcly handle entities content</li>
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +0000[diff] [blame]657 <li><a href="http://rpmfind.net/tools/gdome/messages/0039.html">change
658 structures to accomodate DOM</a></li>
Daniel Veillard6c8b1172000-03-01 00:40:41 +0000[diff] [blame]659 </ul>
660 </li>
Daniel Veillardedfb29b2000-03-14 19:59:05 +0000[diff] [blame]661 <li>Serious progress were made toward compliance, <a
662 href="conf/result.html">here are the result of the test</a> against the
663 OASIS testsuite (except the japanese tests since I don't support that
664 encoding yet). This URL is rebuilt every couple of hours using the CVS
665 head version.</li>
Daniel Veillarde41f2b72000-01-30 20:00:07 +0000[diff] [blame]666</ul>
667
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]668<h3>1.8.7: Mar 6 2000</h3>
669<ul>
670 <li>This is a bug fix release:</li>
671 <li>It is possible to disable the ignorable blanks heuristic used by
672 libxml-1.x, a new function xmlKeepBlanksDefault(0) will allow this. Note
673 that for adherence to XML spec, this behaviour will be disabled by default
674 in 2.x . The same function will allow to keep compatibility for old
675 code.</li>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]676 <li>Blanks in &lt;a&gt; &lt;/a&gt; constructs are not ignored anymore,
677 avoiding heuristic is really the Right Way :-\</li>
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]678 <li>The unchecked use of snprintf which was breaking libxml-1.8.6
679 compilation on some platforms has been fixed</li>
680 <li>nanoftp.c nanohttp.c: Fixed '#' and '?' stripping when processing
681 URIs</li>
682</ul>
683
Daniel Veillarde41f2b72000-01-30 20:00:07 +0000[diff] [blame]684<h3>1.8.6: Jan 31 2000</h3>
685<ul>
686 <li>added a nanoFTP transport module, debugged until the new version of <a
687 href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/rpmfind.html">rpmfind</a> can use
688 it without troubles</li>
Daniel Veillardda07c342000-01-25 18:31:22 +0000[diff] [blame]689</ul>
690
691<h3>1.8.5: Jan 21 2000</h3>
692<ul>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]693 <li>adding APIs to parse a well balanced chunk of XML (production <a
694 href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#NT-content">[43] content</a> of the XML
695 spec)</li>
Daniel Veillard461a66c2000-01-18 18:01:01 +0000[diff] [blame]696 <li>fixed a hideous bug in xmlGetProp pointed by Rune.Djurhuus@fast.no</li>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]697 <li>Jody Goldberg &lt;jgoldberg@home.com&gt; provided another patch trying
698 to solve the zlib checks problems</li>
Daniel Veillard461a66c2000-01-18 18:01:01 +0000[diff] [blame]699 <li>The current state in gnome CVS base is expected to ship as 1.8.5 with
700 gnumeric soon</li>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]701</ul>
702
703<h3>1.8.4: Jan 13 2000</h3>
704<ul>
705 <li>bug fixes, reintroduced xmlNewGlobalNs(), fixed xmlNewNs()</li>
706 <li>all exit() call should have been removed from libxml</li>
707 <li>fixed a problem with INCLUDE_WINSOCK on WIN32 platform</li>
708 <li>added newDocFragment()</li>
Daniel Veillardf84f71f2000-01-05 19:54:23 +0000[diff] [blame]709</ul>
710
711<h3>1.8.3: Jan 5 2000</h3>
712<ul>
713 <li>a Push interface for the XML and HTML parsers</li>
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]714 <li>a shell-like interface to the document tree (try tester --shell :-)</li>
Daniel Veillarddbfd6411999-12-28 16:35:14 +0000[diff] [blame]715 <li>lots of bug fixes and improvement added over XMas hollidays</li>
Daniel Veillard437b87b2000-01-03 17:30:46 +0000[diff] [blame]716 <li>fixed the DTD parsing code to work with the xhtml DTD</li>
Daniel Veillardf84f71f2000-01-05 19:54:23 +0000[diff] [blame]717 <li>added xmlRemoveProp(), xmlRemoveID() and xmlRemoveRef()</li>
718 <li>Fixed bugs in xmlNewNs()</li>
Daniel Veillard437b87b2000-01-03 17:30:46 +0000[diff] [blame]719 <li>External entity loading code has been revamped, now it uses
Daniel Veillardf84f71f2000-01-05 19:54:23 +0000[diff] [blame]720 xmlLoadExternalEntity(), some fix on entities processing were added</li>
Daniel Veillard437b87b2000-01-03 17:30:46 +0000[diff] [blame]721 <li>cleaned up WIN32 includes of socket stuff</li>
Daniel Veillard5cb5ab81999-12-21 15:35:29 +0000[diff] [blame]722</ul>
723
724<h3>1.8.2: Dec 21 1999</h3>
725<ul>
Daniel Veillardb24054a1999-12-18 15:32:46 +0000[diff] [blame]726 <li>I got another problem with includes and C++, I hope this issue is fixed
727 for good this time</li>
Daniel Veillard5cb5ab81999-12-21 15:35:29 +0000[diff] [blame]728 <li>Added a few tree modification functions: xmlReplaceNode,
729 xmlAddPrevSibling, xmlAddNextSibling, xmlNodeSetName and
730 xmlDocSetRootElement</li>
731 <li>Tried to improve the HTML output with help from <a
732 href="mailto:clahey@umich.edu">Chris Lahey</a></li>
Daniel Veillarde4e51311999-12-18 15:32:46 +0000[diff] [blame]733</ul>
Daniel Veillardb24054a1999-12-18 15:32:46 +0000[diff] [blame]734
Daniel Veillarde4e51311999-12-18 15:32:46 +0000[diff] [blame]735<h3>1.8.1: Dec 18 1999</h3>
736<ul>
737 <li>various patches to avoid troubles when using libxml with C++ compilers
738 the "namespace" keyword and C escaping in include files</li>
739 <li>a problem in one of the core macros IS_CHAR was corrected</li>
740 <li>fixed a bug introduced in 1.8.0 breaking default namespace processing,
741 and more specifically the Dia application</li>
Daniel Veillard944b5ff1999-12-15 19:08:24 +0000[diff] [blame]742 <li>fixed a posteriori validation (validation after parsing, or by using a
743 Dtd not specified in the original document)</li>
Daniel Veillardb24054a1999-12-18 15:32:46 +0000[diff] [blame]744 <li>fixed a bug in</li>
Daniel Veillard10a2c651999-12-12 13:03:50 +0000[diff] [blame]745</ul>
746
747<h3>1.8.0: Dec 12 1999</h3>
748<ul>
749 <li>cleanup, especially memory wise</li>
750 <li>the parser should be more reliable, especially the HTML one, it should
751 not crash, whatever the input !</li>
752 <li>Integrated various patches, especially a speedup improvement for large
753 dataset from <a href="mailto:cnygard@bellatlantic.net">Carl Nygard</a>,
754 configure with --with-buffers to enable them.</li>
755 <li>attribute normalization, oops should have been added long ago !</li>
756 <li>attributes defaulted from Dtds should be available, xmlSetProp() now
757 does entities escapting by default.</li>
Daniel Veillard4c3a2031999-11-19 17:46:26 +0000[diff] [blame]758</ul>
Daniel Veillard35008381999-10-25 13:15:52 +0000[diff] [blame]759
760<h3>1.7.4: Oct 25 1999</h3>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]761<ul>
Daniel Veillard35008381999-10-25 13:15:52 +0000[diff] [blame]762 <li>Lots of HTML improvement</li>
763 <li>Fixed some errors when saving both XML and HTML</li>
764 <li>More examples, the regression tests should now look clean</li>
765 <li>Fixed a bug with contiguous charref</li>
766</ul>
767
768<h3>1.7.3: Sep 29 1999</h3>
769<ul>
770 <li>portability problems fixed</li>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]771 <li>snprintf was used unconditionnally, leading to link problems on system
Daniel Veillard35008381999-10-25 13:15:52 +0000[diff] [blame]772 were it's not available, fixed</li>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]773</ul>
774
775<h3>1.7.1: Sep 24 1999</h3>
776<ul>
777 <li>The basic type for strings manipulated by libxml has been renamed in
778 1.7.1 from <strong>CHAR</strong> to <strong>xmlChar</strong>. The reason
779 is that CHAR was conflicting with a predefined type on Windows. However on
780 non WIN32 environment, compatibility is provided by the way of a
781 <strong>#define </strong>.</li>
782 <li>Changed another error : the use of a structure field called errno, and
783 leading to troubles on platforms where it's a macro</li>
784</ul>
785
786<h3>1.7.0: sep 23 1999</h3>
787<ul>
788 <li>Added the ability to fetch remote DTD or parsed entities, see the <a
Daniel Veillard9cb5ff42001-01-29 08:22:21 +0000[diff] [blame]789 href="html/libxml-nanohttp.html">nanohttp</a> module.</li>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]790 <li>Added an errno to report errors by another mean than a simple printf
791 like callback</li>
792 <li>Finished ID/IDREF support and checking when validation</li>
793 <li>Serious memory leaks fixed (there is now a <a
Daniel Veillard9cb5ff42001-01-29 08:22:21 +0000[diff] [blame]794 href="html/libxml-xmlmemory.html">memory wrapper</a> module)</li>
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]795 <li>Improvement of <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath">XPath</a>
796 implementation</li>
797 <li>Added an HTML parser front-end</li>
798</ul>
799
800<h2><a name="XML">XML</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]801
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]802<p><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml">XML is a standard</a> for
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]803markup-based structured documents. Here is <a name="example">an example XML
804document</a>:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]805<pre>&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
806&lt;EXAMPLE prop1="gnome is great" prop2="&amp;amp; linux too"&gt;
807 &lt;head&gt;
808 &lt;title&gt;Welcome to Gnome&lt;/title&gt;
809 &lt;/head&gt;
810 &lt;chapter&gt;
811 &lt;title&gt;The Linux adventure&lt;/title&gt;
812 &lt;p&gt;bla bla bla ...&lt;/p&gt;
813 &lt;image href="linus.gif"/&gt;
814 &lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;
815 &lt;/chapter&gt;
816&lt;/EXAMPLE&gt;</pre>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]817
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]818<p>The first line specifies that it's an XML document and gives useful
819information about its encoding. Then the document is a text format whose
820structure is specified by tags between brackets. <strong>Each tag opened has
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]821to be closed</strong>. XML is pedantic about this. However, if a tag is empty
822(no content), a single tag can serve as both the opening and closing tag if it
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]823ends with <code>/&gt;</code> rather than with <code>&gt;</code>. Note that,
824for example, the image tag has no content (just an attribute) and is closed by
825ending the tag with <code>/&gt;</code>.</p>
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +0000[diff] [blame]826
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]827<p>XML can be applied sucessfully to a wide range of uses, from long term
828structured document maintenance (where it follows the steps of SGML) to simple
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]829data encoding mechanisms like configuration file formatting (glade),
830spreadsheets (gnumeric), or even shorter lived documents such as WebDAV where
831it is used to encode remote calls between a client and a server.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]832
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +0000[diff] [blame]833<h2><a name="XSLT">XSLT</a></h2>
834
Daniel Veillard6e6a6cc2001-02-15 15:55:44 +0000[diff] [blame]835<p>Check <a href="http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT">the separate libxslt page</a></p>
836
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +0000[diff] [blame]837<p><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt">XSL Transformations</a>, is a language
838for transforming XML documents into other XML documents (or HTML/textual
839output).</p>
840
841<p>A separate library called libxslt is being built on top of libxml2. This
842module "libxslt" can be found in the Gnome CVS base too.</p>
843
Daniel Veillard383b1472001-01-23 11:39:52 +0000[diff] [blame]844<p>You can check the <a
Daniel Veillard6e6a6cc2001-02-15 15:55:44 +0000[diff] [blame]845href="http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/libxslt/FEATURES">features</a> supported
846and the progresses on the <a
Daniel Veillard82687162001-01-22 15:32:01 +0000[diff] [blame]847href="http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/libxslt/ChangeLog">Changelog</a></p>
848
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +0000[diff] [blame]849<h2>An overview of libxml architecture</h2>
850
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]851<p>Libxml is made of multiple components; some of them are optional, and most
852of the block interfaces are public. The main components are:</p>
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +0000[diff] [blame]853<ul>
854 <li>an Input/Output layer</li>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]855 <li>FTP and HTTP client layers (optional)</li>
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +0000[diff] [blame]856 <li>an Internationalization layer managing the encodings support</li>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]857 <li>a URI module</li>
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +0000[diff] [blame]858 <li>the XML parser and its basic SAX interface</li>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]859 <li>an HTML parser using the same SAX interface (optional)</li>
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +0000[diff] [blame]860 <li>a SAX tree module to build an in-memory DOM representation</li>
861 <li>a tree module to manipulate the DOM representation</li>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]862 <li>a validation module using the DOM representation (optional)</li>
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +0000[diff] [blame]863 <li>an XPath module for global lookup in a DOM representation
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]864 (optional)</li>
865 <li>a debug module (optional)</li>
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +0000[diff] [blame]866</ul>
867
868<p>Graphically this gives the following:</p>
869
870<p><img src="libxml.gif" alt="a graphical view of the various"></p>
871
872<p></p>
873
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]874<h2><a name="tree">The tree output</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]875
876<p>The parser returns a tree built during the document analysis. The value
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]877returned is an <strong>xmlDocPtr</strong> (i.e., a pointer to an
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]878<strong>xmlDoc</strong> structure). This structure contains information such
Daniel Veillard306be992000-07-03 12:38:45 +0000[diff] [blame]879as the file name, the document type, and a <strong>children</strong> pointer
880which is the root of the document (or more exactly the first child under the
881root which is the document). The tree is made of <strong>xmlNode</strong>s,
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]882chained in double-linked lists of siblings and with a children&lt;-&gt;parent
Daniel Veillard306be992000-07-03 12:38:45 +0000[diff] [blame]883relationship. An xmlNode can also carry properties (a chain of xmlAttr
884structures). An attribute may have a value which is a list of TEXT or
885ENTITY_REF nodes.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]886
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]887<p>Here is an example (erroneous with respect to the XML spec since there
888should be only one ELEMENT under the root):</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]889
890<p><img src="structure.gif" alt=" structure.gif "></p>
891
892<p>In the source package there is a small program (not installed by default)
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +0000[diff] [blame]893called <strong>xmllint</strong> which parses XML files given as argument and
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]894prints them back as parsed. This is useful for detecting errors both in XML
895code and in the XML parser itself. It has an option <strong>--debug</strong>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]896which prints the actual in-memory structure of the document; here is the
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]897result with the <a href="#example">example</a> given before:</p>
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +0000[diff] [blame]898<pre>DOCUMENT
899version=1.0
900standalone=true
901 ELEMENT EXAMPLE
902 ATTRIBUTE prop1
903 TEXT
904 content=gnome is great
905 ATTRIBUTE prop2
906 ENTITY_REF
907 TEXT
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]908 content= linux too
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]909 ELEMENT head
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +0000[diff] [blame]910 ELEMENT title
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]911 TEXT
912 content=Welcome to Gnome
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +0000[diff] [blame]913 ELEMENT chapter
914 ELEMENT title
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]915 TEXT
916 content=The Linux adventure
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +0000[diff] [blame]917 ELEMENT p
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]918 TEXT
919 content=bla bla bla ...
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +0000[diff] [blame]920 ELEMENT image
921 ATTRIBUTE href
922 TEXT
923 content=linus.gif
924 ELEMENT p
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]925 TEXT
926 content=...</pre>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]927
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]928<p>This should be useful for learning the internal representation model.</p>
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +0000[diff] [blame]929
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]930<h2><a name="interface">The SAX interface</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]931
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]932<p>Sometimes the DOM tree output is just too large to fit reasonably into
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]933memory. In that case (and if you don't expect to save back the XML document
934loaded using libxml), it's better to use the SAX interface of libxml. SAX is a
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]935<strong>callback-based interface</strong> to the parser. Before parsing, the
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]936application layer registers a customized set of callbacks which are called by
937the library as it progresses through the XML input.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]938
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]939<p>To get more detailed step-by-step guidance on using the SAX interface of
Daniel Veillard4540be42000-08-19 16:40:28 +0000[diff] [blame]940libxml, see the <a
941href="http://www.daa.com.au/~james/gnome/xml-sax/xml-sax.html">nice
942documentation</a>.written by <a href="mailto:james@daa.com.au">James
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]943Henstridge</a>.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]944
945<p>You can debug the SAX behaviour by using the <strong>testSAX</strong>
946program located in the gnome-xml module (it's usually not shipped in the
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]947binary packages of libxml, but you can find it in the tar source
Daniel Veillard402e8c82000-02-29 22:57:47 +0000[diff] [blame]948distribution). Here is the sequence of callbacks that would be reported by
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]949testSAX when parsing the example XML document shown earlier:</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]950<pre>SAX.setDocumentLocator()
951SAX.startDocument()
952SAX.getEntity(amp)
953SAX.startElement(EXAMPLE, prop1='gnome is great', prop2='&amp;amp; linux too')
954SAX.characters( , 3)
955SAX.startElement(head)
956SAX.characters( , 4)
957SAX.startElement(title)
958SAX.characters(Welcome to Gnome, 16)
959SAX.endElement(title)
960SAX.characters( , 3)
961SAX.endElement(head)
962SAX.characters( , 3)
963SAX.startElement(chapter)
964SAX.characters( , 4)
965SAX.startElement(title)
966SAX.characters(The Linux adventure, 19)
967SAX.endElement(title)
968SAX.characters( , 4)
969SAX.startElement(p)
970SAX.characters(bla bla bla ..., 15)
971SAX.endElement(p)
972SAX.characters( , 4)
973SAX.startElement(image, href='linus.gif')
974SAX.endElement(image)
975SAX.characters( , 4)
976SAX.startElement(p)
977SAX.characters(..., 3)
978SAX.endElement(p)
979SAX.characters( , 3)
980SAX.endElement(chapter)
981SAX.characters( , 1)
982SAX.endElement(EXAMPLE)
983SAX.endDocument()</pre>
984
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]985<p>Most of the other interfaces of libxml are based on the DOM tree-building
986facility, so nearly everything up to the end of this document presupposes the
987use of the standard DOM tree build. Note that the DOM tree itself is built by
988a set of registered default callbacks, without internal specific
989interface.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]990
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]991<h2><a name="library">The XML library interfaces</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]992
993<p>This section is directly intended to help programmers getting bootstrapped
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]994using the XML library from the C language. It is not intended to be extensive.
995I hope the automatically generated documents will provide the completeness
996required, but as a separate set of documents. The interfaces of the XML
997library are by principle low level, there is nearly zero abstraction. Those
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]998interested in a higher level API should <a href="#DOM">look at DOM</a>.</p>
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +0000[diff] [blame]999
Daniel Veillard9cb5ff42001-01-29 08:22:21 +0000[diff] [blame]1000<p>The <a href="html/libxml-parser.html">parser interfaces for XML</a> are
1001separated from the <a href="html/libxml-htmlparser.html">HTML parser
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1002interfaces</a>. Let's have a look at how the XML parser can be called:</p>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]1003
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1004<h3><a name="Invoking">Invoking the parser : the pull method</a></h3>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1005
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1006<p>Usually, the first thing to do is to read an XML input. The parser accepts
1007documents either from in-memory strings or from files. The functions are
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1008defined in "parser.h":</p>
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1009<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1010 <dt><code>xmlDocPtr xmlParseMemory(char *buffer, int size);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1011 <dd><p>Parse a null-terminated string containing the document.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1012 </dd>
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1013</dl>
1014<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1015 <dt><code>xmlDocPtr xmlParseFile(const char *filename);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]1016 <dd><p>Parse an XML document contained in a (possibly compressed)
1017 file.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1018 </dd>
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1019</dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1020
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1021<p>The parser returns a pointer to the document structure (or NULL in case of
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1022failure).</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1023
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1024<h3 id="Invoking1">Invoking the parser: the push method</h3>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]1025
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1026<p>In order for the application to keep the control when the document is being
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1027fetched (which is common for GUI based programs) libxml provides a push
1028interface, too, as of version 1.8.3. Here are the interface functions:</p>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]1029<pre>xmlParserCtxtPtr xmlCreatePushParserCtxt(xmlSAXHandlerPtr sax,
1030 void *user_data,
1031 const char *chunk,
1032 int size,
1033 const char *filename);
1034int xmlParseChunk (xmlParserCtxtPtr ctxt,
1035 const char *chunk,
1036 int size,
1037 int terminate);</pre>
1038
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1039<p>and here is a simple example showing how to use the interface:</p>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]1040<pre> FILE *f;
1041
1042 f = fopen(filename, "r");
1043 if (f != NULL) {
1044 int res, size = 1024;
1045 char chars[1024];
1046 xmlParserCtxtPtr ctxt;
1047
1048 res = fread(chars, 1, 4, f);
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1049 if (res &gt; 0) {
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]1050 ctxt = xmlCreatePushParserCtxt(NULL, NULL,
1051 chars, res, filename);
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1052 while ((res = fread(chars, 1, size, f)) &gt; 0) {
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]1053 xmlParseChunk(ctxt, chars, res, 0);
1054 }
1055 xmlParseChunk(ctxt, chars, 0, 1);
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1056 doc = ctxt-&gt;myDoc;
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]1057 xmlFreeParserCtxt(ctxt);
1058 }
1059 }</pre>
1060
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1061<p>The HTML parser embedded into libxml also has a push interface; the
1062functions are just prefixed by "html" rather than "xml".</p>
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]1063
1064<h3 id="Invoking2">Invoking the parser: the SAX interface</h3>
1065
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1066<p>The tree-building interface makes the parser memory-hungry, first loading
1067the document in memory and then building the tree itself. Reading a document
1068without building the tree is possible using the SAX interfaces (see SAX.h and
1069<a href="http://www.daa.com.au/~james/gnome/xml-sax/xml-sax.html">James
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1070Henstridge's documentation</a>). Note also that the push interface can be
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1071limited to SAX: just use the two first arguments of
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]1072<code>xmlCreatePushParserCtxt()</code>.</p>
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +0000[diff] [blame]1073
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]1074<h3><a name="Building">Building a tree from scratch</a></h3>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1075
1076<p>The other way to get an XML tree in memory is by building it. Basically
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]1077there is a set of functions dedicated to building new elements. (These are
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1078also described in &lt;libxml/tree.h&gt;.) For example, here is a piece of code
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +0000[diff] [blame]1079that produces the XML document used in the previous examples:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1080<pre> #include &lt;libxml/tree.h&gt;
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +0000[diff] [blame]1081 xmlDocPtr doc;
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1082 xmlNodePtr tree, subtree;
1083
1084 doc = xmlNewDoc("1.0");
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1085 doc-&gt;children = xmlNewDocNode(doc, NULL, "EXAMPLE", NULL);
1086 xmlSetProp(doc-&gt;children, "prop1", "gnome is great");
1087 xmlSetProp(doc-&gt;children, "prop2", "&amp; linux too");
1088 tree = xmlNewChild(doc-&gt;children, NULL, "head", NULL);
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1089 subtree = xmlNewChild(tree, NULL, "title", "Welcome to Gnome");
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1090 tree = xmlNewChild(doc-&gt;children, NULL, "chapter", NULL);
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1091 subtree = xmlNewChild(tree, NULL, "title", "The Linux adventure");
1092 subtree = xmlNewChild(tree, NULL, "p", "bla bla bla ...");
1093 subtree = xmlNewChild(tree, NULL, "image", NULL);
1094 xmlSetProp(subtree, "href", "linus.gif");</pre>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1095
1096<p>Not really rocket science ...</p>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1097
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]1098<h3><a name="Traversing">Traversing the tree</a></h3>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1099
Daniel Veillard9cb5ff42001-01-29 08:22:21 +0000[diff] [blame]1100<p>Basically by <a href="html/libxml-tree.html">including "tree.h"</a> your
Daniel Veillard306be992000-07-03 12:38:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1101code has access to the internal structure of all the elements of the tree. The
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]1102names should be somewhat simple like <strong>parent</strong>,
Daniel Veillard306be992000-07-03 12:38:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1103<strong>children</strong>, <strong>next</strong>, <strong>prev</strong>,
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1104<strong>properties</strong>, etc... For example, still with the previous
Daniel Veillard0142b842000-01-14 14:45:24 +0000[diff] [blame]1105example:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1106<pre><code>doc-&gt;children-&gt;children-&gt;children</code></pre>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1107
1108<p>points to the title element,</p>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1109<pre>doc-&gt;children-&gt;children-&gt;next-&gt;children-&gt;children</pre>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1110
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]1111<p>points to the text node containing the chapter title "The Linux
1112adventure".</p>
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1113
Daniel Veillardb24054a1999-12-18 15:32:46 +0000[diff] [blame]1114<p><strong>NOTE</strong>: XML allows <em>PI</em>s and <em>comments</em> to be
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1115present before the document root, so <code>doc-&gt;children</code> may point
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1116to an element which is not the document Root Element; a function
Daniel Veillard5cb5ab81999-12-21 15:35:29 +0000[diff] [blame]1117<code>xmlDocGetRootElement()</code> was added for this purpose.</p>
Daniel Veillardb24054a1999-12-18 15:32:46 +0000[diff] [blame]1118
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]1119<h3><a name="Modifying">Modifying the tree</a></h3>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1120
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1121<p>Functions are provided for reading and writing the document content. Here
Daniel Veillard9cb5ff42001-01-29 08:22:21 +0000[diff] [blame]1122is an excerpt from the <a href="html/libxml-tree.html">tree API</a>:</p>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1123<dl>
Daniel Veillarddd6b3671999-09-23 22:19:22 +0000[diff] [blame]1124 <dt><code>xmlAttrPtr xmlSetProp(xmlNodePtr node, const xmlChar *name, const
1125 xmlChar *value);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1126 <dd><p>This sets (or changes) an attribute carried by an ELEMENT node. The
1127 value can be NULL.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1128 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1129</dl>
1130<dl>
Daniel Veillarddd6b3671999-09-23 22:19:22 +0000[diff] [blame]1131 <dt><code>const xmlChar *xmlGetProp(xmlNodePtr node, const xmlChar
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1132 *name);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillardc92c3042000-09-29 02:42:04 +0000[diff] [blame]1133 <dd><p>This function returns a pointer to new copy of the property
1134 content. Note that the user must deallocate the result.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1135 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1136</dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1137
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1138<p>Two functions are provided for reading and writing the text associated with
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1139elements:</p>
1140<dl>
Daniel Veillarddd6b3671999-09-23 22:19:22 +0000[diff] [blame]1141 <dt><code>xmlNodePtr xmlStringGetNodeList(xmlDocPtr doc, const xmlChar
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1142 *value);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1143 <dd><p>This function takes an "external" string and converts it to one
1144 text node or possibly to a list of entity and text nodes. All
1145 non-predefined entity references like &amp;Gnome; will be stored
1146 internally as entity nodes, hence the result of the function may not be
1147 a single node.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1148 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1149</dl>
1150<dl>
Daniel Veillarddd6b3671999-09-23 22:19:22 +0000[diff] [blame]1151 <dt><code>xmlChar *xmlNodeListGetString(xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNodePtr list, int
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1152 inLine);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]1153 <dd><p>This function is the inverse of
1154 <code>xmlStringGetNodeList()</code>. It generates a new string
1155 containing the content of the text and entity nodes. Note the extra
1156 argument inLine. If this argument is set to 1, the function will expand
1157 entity references. For example, instead of returning the &amp;Gnome;
1158 XML encoding in the string, it will substitute it with its value (say,
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1159 "GNU Network Object Model Environment").</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1160 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1161</dl>
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1162
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]1163<h3><a name="Saving">Saving a tree</a></h3>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1164
1165<p>Basically 3 options are possible:</p>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1166<dl>
Daniel Veillarddd6b3671999-09-23 22:19:22 +0000[diff] [blame]1167 <dt><code>void xmlDocDumpMemory(xmlDocPtr cur, xmlChar**mem, int
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1168 *size);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1169 <dd><p>Returns a buffer into which the document has been saved.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1170 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1171</dl>
1172<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1173 <dt><code>extern void xmlDocDump(FILE *f, xmlDocPtr doc);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1174 <dd><p>Dumps a document to an open file descriptor.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1175 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1176</dl>
1177<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1178 <dt><code>int xmlSaveFile(const char *filename, xmlDocPtr cur);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]1179 <dd><p>Saves the document to a file. In this case, the compression
1180 interface is triggered if it has been turned on.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1181 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1182</dl>
Daniel Veillard10c6a8f1998-10-28 01:00:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1183
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]1184<h3><a name="Compressio">Compression</a></h3>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1185
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1186<p>The library transparently handles compression when doing file-based
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]1187accesses. The level of compression on saves can be turned on either globally
1188or individually for one file:</p>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1189<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1190 <dt><code>int xmlGetDocCompressMode (xmlDocPtr doc);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1191 <dd><p>Gets the document compression ratio (0-9).</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1192 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1193</dl>
1194<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1195 <dt><code>void xmlSetDocCompressMode (xmlDocPtr doc, int mode);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1196 <dd><p>Sets the document compression ratio.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1197 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1198</dl>
1199<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1200 <dt><code>int xmlGetCompressMode(void);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1201 <dd><p>Gets the default compression ratio.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1202 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1203</dl>
1204<dl>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1205 <dt><code>void xmlSetCompressMode(int mode);</code></dt>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1206 <dd><p>Sets the default compression ratio.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1207 </dd>
Daniel Veillard25940b71998-10-29 05:51:30 +0000[diff] [blame]1208</dl>
1209
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]1210<h2><a name="Entities">Entities or no entities</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1211
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1212<p>Entities in principle are similar to simple C macros. An entity defines an
1213abbreviation for a given string that you can reuse many times throughout the
1214content of your document. Entities are especially useful when a given string
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]1215may occur frequently within a document, or to confine the change needed to a
1216document to a restricted area in the internal subset of the document (at the
1217beginning). Example:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1218<pre>1 &lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]12192 &lt;!DOCTYPE EXAMPLE SYSTEM "example.dtd" [
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]12203 &lt;!ENTITY xml "Extensible Markup Language"&gt;
12214 ]&gt;
12225 &lt;EXAMPLE&gt;
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]12236 &amp;xml;
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]12247 &lt;/EXAMPLE&gt;</pre>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1225
1226<p>Line 3 declares the xml entity. Line 6 uses the xml entity, by prefixing
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1227its name with '&amp;' and following it by ';' without any spaces added. There
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1228are 5 predefined entities in libxml allowing you to escape charaters with
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1229predefined meaning in some parts of the xml document content:
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1230<strong>&amp;lt;</strong> for the character '&lt;', <strong>&amp;gt;</strong>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1231for the character '&gt;', <strong>&amp;apos;</strong> for the character ''',
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1232<strong>&amp;quot;</strong> for the character '"', and
1233<strong>&amp;amp;</strong> for the character '&amp;'.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1234
1235<p>One of the problems related to entities is that you may want the parser to
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]1236substitute an entity's content so that you can see the replacement text in
1237your application. Or you may prefer to keep entity references as such in the
1238content to be able to save the document back without losing this usually
1239precious information (if the user went through the pain of explicitly defining
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1240entities, he may have a a rather negative attitude if you blindly susbtitute
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1241them as saving time). The <a
Daniel Veillard9cb5ff42001-01-29 08:22:21 +0000[diff] [blame]1242href="html/libxml-parser.html#XMLSUBSTITUTEENTITIESDEFAULT">xmlSubstituteEntitiesDefault()</a>
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1243function allows you to check and change the behaviour, which is to not
1244substitute entities by default.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1245
1246<p>Here is the DOM tree built by libxml for the previous document in the
1247default case:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1248<pre>/gnome/src/gnome-xml -&gt; ./xmllint --debug test/ent1
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1249DOCUMENT
1250version=1.0
1251 ELEMENT EXAMPLE
1252 TEXT
1253 content=
1254 ENTITY_REF
1255 INTERNAL_GENERAL_ENTITY xml
1256 content=Extensible Markup Language
1257 TEXT
1258 content=</pre>
1259
1260<p>And here is the result when substituting entities:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1261<pre>/gnome/src/gnome-xml -&gt; ./tester --debug --noent test/ent1
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1262DOCUMENT
1263version=1.0
1264 ELEMENT EXAMPLE
1265 TEXT
1266 content= Extensible Markup Language</pre>
1267
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1268<p>So, entities or no entities? Basically, it depends on your use case. I
1269suggest that you keep the non-substituting default behaviour and avoid using
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1270entities in your XML document or data if you are not willing to handle the
1271entity references elements in the DOM tree.</p>
1272
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1273<p>Note that at save time libxml enforces the conversion of the predefined
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1274entities where necessary to prevent well-formedness problems, and will also
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1275transparently replace those with chars (i.e. it will not generate entity
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1276reference elements in the DOM tree or call the reference() SAX callback when
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1277finding them in the input).</p>
1278
Daniel Veillard7b9c4b72000-08-25 16:26:50 +0000[diff] [blame]1279<p><span style="background-color: #FF0000">WARNING</span>: handling entities
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1280on top of the libxml SAX interface is difficult!!! If you plan to use
Daniel Veillard7b9c4b72000-08-25 16:26:50 +0000[diff] [blame]1281non-predefined entities in your documents, then the learning cuvre to handle
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1282then using the SAX API may be long. If you plan to use complex documents, I
Daniel Veillard7b9c4b72000-08-25 16:26:50 +0000[diff] [blame]1283strongly suggest you consider using the DOM interface instead and let libxml
Daniel Veillard8c6d6af2000-08-25 17:14:13 +0000[diff] [blame]1284deal with the complexity rather than trying to do it yourself.</p>
Daniel Veillard7b9c4b72000-08-25 16:26:50 +0000[diff] [blame]1285
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]1286<h2><a name="Namespaces">Namespaces</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1287
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +0000[diff] [blame]1288<p>The libxml library implements <a
1289href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/">XML namespaces</a> support by
1290recognizing namespace contructs in the input, and does namespace lookup
1291automatically when building the DOM tree. A namespace declaration is
1292associated with an in-memory structure and all elements or attributes within
1293that namespace point to it. Hence testing the namespace is a simple and fast
1294equality operation at the user level.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1295
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]1296<p>I suggest that people using libxml use a namespace, and declare it in the
1297root element of their document as the default namespace. Then they don't need
1298to use the prefix in the content but we will have a basis for future semantic
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1299refinement and merging of data from different sources. This doesn't increase
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1300the size of the XML output significantly, but significantly increases its
1301value in the long-term. Example:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1302<pre>&lt;mydoc xmlns="http://mydoc.example.org/schemas/"&gt;
1303 &lt;elem1&gt;...&lt;/elem1&gt;
1304 &lt;elem2&gt;...&lt;/elem2&gt;
1305&lt;/mydoc&gt;</pre>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1306
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1307<p>The namespace value has to be an absolute URL, but the URL doesn't have to
1308point to any existing resource on the Web. It will bind all the element and
1309atributes with that URL. I suggest to use an URL within a domain you control,
1310and that the URL should contain some kind of version information if possible.
1311For example, <code>"http://www.gnome.org/gnumeric/1.0/"</code> is a good
1312namespace scheme.</p>
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +0000[diff] [blame]1313
1314<p>Then when you load a file, make sure that a namespace carrying the
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1315version-independent prefix is installed on the root element of your document,
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1316and if the version information don't match something you know, warn the user
1317and be liberal in what you accept as the input. Also do *not* try to base
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1318namespace checking on the prefix value. &lt;foo:text&gt; may be exactly the
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1319same as &lt;bar:text&gt; in another document. What really matters is the URI
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1320associated with the element or the attribute, not the prefix string (which is
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1321just a shortcut for the full URI). In libxml, element and attributes have an
Daniel Veillardec303412000-03-24 13:41:54 +0000[diff] [blame]1322<code>ns</code> field pointing to an xmlNs structure detailing the namespace
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1323prefix and its URI.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1324
1325<p>@@Interfaces@@</p>
1326
1327<p>@@Examples@@</p>
1328
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1329<p>Usually people object to using namespaces together with validity checking.
1330I will try to make sure that using namespaces won't break validity checking,
1331so even if you plan to use or currently are using validation I strongly
Daniel Veillardf13e1ed2000-03-06 07:41:49 +0000[diff] [blame]1332suggest adding namespaces to your document. A default namespace scheme
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1333<code>xmlns="http://...."</code> should not break validity even on less
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1334flexible parsers. Using namespaces to mix and differentiate content coming
Daniel Veillard88f00ae2000-03-02 00:15:55 +0000[diff] [blame]1335from multiple DTDs will certainly break current validation schemes. I will try
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1336to provide ways to do this, but this may not be portable or standardized.</p>
1337
Daniel Veillard2f4dfc41999-09-24 14:03:48 +0000[diff] [blame]1338<h2><a name="Validation">Validation, or are you afraid of DTDs ?</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1339
1340<p>Well what is validation and what is a DTD ?</p>
1341
1342<p>Validation is the process of checking a document against a set of
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1343construction rules; a <strong>DTD</strong> (Document Type Definition) is such
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1344a set of rules.</p>
1345
1346<p>The validation process and building DTDs are the two most difficult parts
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1347of the XML life cycle. Briefly a DTD defines all the possibles element to be
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1348found within your document, what is the formal shape of your document tree (by
1349defining the allowed content of an element, either text, a regular expression
Daniel Veillard306be992000-07-03 12:38:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1350for the allowed list of children, or mixed content i.e. both text and
1351children). The DTD also defines the allowed attributes for all elements and
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1352the types of the attributes. For more detailed information, I suggest that you
Daniel Veillard81781102001-03-07 09:31:47 +0000[diff] [blame]1353read the related parts of the XML specification, the examples found under
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1354gnome-xml/test/valid/dtd and any of the large number of books available on
1355XML. The dia example in gnome-xml/test/valid should be both simple and
1356complete enough to allow you to build your own.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1357
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1358<p>A word of warning, building a good DTD which will fit the needs of your
1359application in the long-term is far from trivial; however, the extra level of
1360quality it can ensure is well worth the price for some sets of applications or
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1361if you already have already a DTD defined for your application field.</p>
1362
1363<p>The validation is not completely finished but in a (very IMHO) usable
1364state. Until a real validation interface is defined the way to do it is to
1365define and set the <strong>xmlDoValidityCheckingDefaultValue</strong> external
1366variable to 1, this will of course be changed at some point:</p>
1367
1368<p>extern int xmlDoValidityCheckingDefaultValue;</p>
1369
1370<p>...</p>
1371
1372<p>xmlDoValidityCheckingDefaultValue = 1;</p>
1373
1374<p></p>
1375
1376<p>To handle external entities, use the function
1377<strong>xmlSetExternalEntityLoader</strong>(xmlExternalEntityLoader f); to
1378link in you HTTP/FTP/Entities database library to the standard libxml
1379core.</p>
1380
1381<p>@@interfaces@@</p>
1382
Daniel Veillard35008381999-10-25 13:15:52 +0000[diff] [blame]1383<h2><a name="DOM"></a><a name="Principles">DOM Principles</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1384
1385<p><a href="http://www.w3.org/DOM/">DOM</a> stands for the <em>Document Object
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1386Model</em>; this is an API for accessing XML or HTML structured documents.
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1387Native support for DOM in Gnome is on the way (module gnome-dom), and will be
1388based on gnome-xml. This will be a far cleaner interface to manipulate XML
Daniel Veillard3197f162001-04-04 00:40:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1389files within Gnome since it won't expose the internal structure.</p>
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1390
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1391<p>The current DOM implementation on top of libxml is the <a
Daniel Veillarda47fb3d2001-03-25 17:23:49 +0000[diff] [blame]1392href="http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/gdome2/">gdome2 Gnome module</a>, this
1393is a full DOM interface, thanks to Paolo Casarini, check the <a
1394href="http://www.cs.unibo.it/~casarini/gdome2/">Gdome2 homepage</a> for more
1395informations.</p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1396
Daniel Veillard35008381999-10-25 13:15:52 +0000[diff] [blame]1397<h2><a name="Example"></a><a name="real">A real example</a></h2>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1398
1399<p>Here is a real size example, where the actual content of the application
1400data is not kept in the DOM tree but uses internal structures. It is based on
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1401a proposal to keep a database of jobs related to Gnome, with an XML based
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1402storage structure. Here is an <a href="gjobs.xml">XML encoded jobs
1403base</a>:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1404<pre>&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
1405&lt;gjob:Helping xmlns:gjob="http://www.gnome.org/some-location"&gt;
1406 &lt;gjob:Jobs&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1407
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1408 &lt;gjob:Job&gt;
1409 &lt;gjob:Project ID="3"/&gt;
1410 &lt;gjob:Application&gt;GBackup&lt;/gjob:Application&gt;
1411 &lt;gjob:Category&gt;Development&lt;/gjob:Category&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1412
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1413 &lt;gjob:Update&gt;
1414 &lt;gjob:Status&gt;Open&lt;/gjob:Status&gt;
1415 &lt;gjob:Modified&gt;Mon, 07 Jun 1999 20:27:45 -0400 MET DST&lt;/gjob:Modified&gt;
1416 &lt;gjob:Salary&gt;USD 0.00&lt;/gjob:Salary&gt;
1417 &lt;/gjob:Update&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1418
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1419 &lt;gjob:Developers&gt;
1420 &lt;gjob:Developer&gt;
1421 &lt;/gjob:Developer&gt;
1422 &lt;/gjob:Developers&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1423
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1424 &lt;gjob:Contact&gt;
1425 &lt;gjob:Person&gt;Nathan Clemons&lt;/gjob:Person&gt;
1426 &lt;gjob:Email&gt;nathan@windsofstorm.net&lt;/gjob:Email&gt;
1427 &lt;gjob:Company&gt;
1428 &lt;/gjob:Company&gt;
1429 &lt;gjob:Organisation&gt;
1430 &lt;/gjob:Organisation&gt;
1431 &lt;gjob:Webpage&gt;
1432 &lt;/gjob:Webpage&gt;
1433 &lt;gjob:Snailmail&gt;
1434 &lt;/gjob:Snailmail&gt;
1435 &lt;gjob:Phone&gt;
1436 &lt;/gjob:Phone&gt;
1437 &lt;/gjob:Contact&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1438
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1439 &lt;gjob:Requirements&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1440 The program should be released as free software, under the GPL.
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1441 &lt;/gjob:Requirements&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1442
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1443 &lt;gjob:Skills&gt;
1444 &lt;/gjob:Skills&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1445
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1446 &lt;gjob:Details&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1447 A GNOME based system that will allow a superuser to configure
1448 compressed and uncompressed files and/or file systems to be backed
1449 up with a supported media in the system. This should be able to
1450 perform via find commands generating a list of files that are passed
1451 to tar, dd, cpio, cp, gzip, etc., to be directed to the tape machine
1452 or via operations performed on the filesystem itself. Email
1453 notification and GUI status display very important.
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1454 &lt;/gjob:Details&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1455
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1456 &lt;/gjob:Job&gt;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1457
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1458 &lt;/gjob:Jobs&gt;
1459&lt;/gjob:Helping&gt;</pre>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1460
1461<p>While loading the XML file into an internal DOM tree is a matter of calling
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1462only a couple of functions, browsing the tree to gather the ata and generate
1463the internal structures is harder, and more error prone.</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1464
1465<p>The suggested principle is to be tolerant with respect to the input
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1466structure. For example, the ordering of the attributes is not significant, the
1467XML specification is clear about it. It's also usually a good idea not to
1468depend on the order of the children of a given node, unless it really makes
1469things harder. Here is some code to parse the information for a person:</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1470<pre>/*
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1471 * A person record
1472 */
1473typedef struct person {
1474 char *name;
1475 char *email;
1476 char *company;
1477 char *organisation;
1478 char *smail;
1479 char *webPage;
1480 char *phone;
1481} person, *personPtr;
1482
1483/*
1484 * And the code needed to parse it
1485 */
1486personPtr parsePerson(xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNsPtr ns, xmlNodePtr cur) {
1487 personPtr ret = NULL;
1488
1489DEBUG("parsePerson\n");
1490 /*
1491 * allocate the struct
1492 */
1493 ret = (personPtr) malloc(sizeof(person));
1494 if (ret == NULL) {
1495 fprintf(stderr,"out of memory\n");
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1496 return(NULL);
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1497 }
1498 memset(ret, 0, sizeof(person));
1499
1500 /* We don't care what the top level element name is */
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1501 cur = cur-&gt;xmlChildrenNode;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1502 while (cur != NULL) {
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1503 if ((!strcmp(cur-&gt;name, "Person")) &amp;&amp; (cur-&gt;ns == ns))
1504 ret-&gt;name = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, cur-&gt;xmlChildrenNode, 1);
1505 if ((!strcmp(cur-&gt;name, "Email")) &amp;&amp; (cur-&gt;ns == ns))
1506 ret-&gt;email = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, cur-&gt;xmlChildrenNode, 1);
1507 cur = cur-&gt;next;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1508 }
1509
1510 return(ret);
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1511}</pre>
1512
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1513<p>Here are a couple of things to notice:</p>
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1514<ul>
Daniel Veillard91e9d582001-02-26 07:31:12 +0000[diff] [blame]1515 <li>Usually a recursive parsing style is the more convenient one: XML data
1516 is by nature subject to repetitive constructs and usually exibits highly
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1517 stuctured patterns.</li>
1518 <li>The two arguments of type <em>xmlDocPtr</em> and <em>xmlNsPtr</em>, i.e.
1519 the pointer to the global XML document and the namespace reserved to the
1520 application. Document wide information are needed for example to decode
1521 entities and it's a good coding practice to define a namespace for your
1522 application set of data and test that the element and attributes you're
1523 analyzing actually pertains to your application space. This is done by a
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1524 simple equality test (cur-&gt;ns == ns).</li>
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1525 <li>To retrieve text and attributes value, you can use the function
1526 <em>xmlNodeListGetString</em> to gather all the text and entity reference
1527 nodes generated by the DOM output and produce an single text string.</li>
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1528</ul>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1529
1530<p>Here is another piece of code used to parse another level of the
1531structure:</p>
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1532<pre>#include &lt;libxml/tree.h&gt;
Daniel Veillard361d8452000-04-03 19:48:13 +0000[diff] [blame]1533/*
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1534 * a Description for a Job
1535 */
1536typedef struct job {
1537 char *projectID;
1538 char *application;
1539 char *category;
1540 personPtr contact;
1541 int nbDevelopers;
1542 personPtr developers[100]; /* using dynamic alloc is left as an exercise */
1543} job, *jobPtr;
1544
1545/*
1546 * And the code needed to parse it
1547 */
1548jobPtr parseJob(xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNsPtr ns, xmlNodePtr cur) {
1549 jobPtr ret = NULL;
1550
1551DEBUG("parseJob\n");
1552 /*
1553 * allocate the struct
1554 */
1555 ret = (jobPtr) malloc(sizeof(job));
1556 if (ret == NULL) {
1557 fprintf(stderr,"out of memory\n");
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1558 return(NULL);
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1559 }
1560 memset(ret, 0, sizeof(job));
1561
1562 /* We don't care what the top level element name is */
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1563 cur = cur-&gt;xmlChildrenNode;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1564 while (cur != NULL) {
1565
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1566 if ((!strcmp(cur-&gt;name, "Project")) &amp;&amp; (cur-&gt;ns == ns)) {
1567 ret-&gt;projectID = xmlGetProp(cur, "ID");
1568 if (ret-&gt;projectID == NULL) {
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1569 fprintf(stderr, "Project has no ID\n");
1570 }
1571 }
Daniel Veillard60979bd2000-07-10 12:17:33 +0000[diff] [blame]1572 if ((!strcmp(cur-&gt;name, "Application")) &amp;&amp; (cur-&gt;ns == ns))
1573 ret-&gt;application = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, cur-&gt;xmlChildrenNode, 1);
1574 if ((!strcmp(cur-&gt;name, "Category")) &amp;&amp; (cur-&gt;ns == ns))
1575 ret-&gt;category = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, cur-&gt;xmlChildrenNode, 1);
1576 if ((!strcmp(cur-&gt;name, "Contact")) &amp;&amp; (cur-&gt;ns == ns))
1577 ret-&gt;contact = parsePerson(doc, ns, cur);
1578 cur = cur-&gt;next;
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1579 }
1580
1581 return(ret);
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1582}</pre>
Daniel Veillard14fff061999-06-22 21:49:07 +0000[diff] [blame]1583
Daniel Veillardec70e912001-02-26 20:10:45 +0000[diff] [blame]1584<p>Once you are used to it, writing this kind of code is quite simple, but
1585boring. Ultimately, it could be possble to write stubbers taking either C data
1586structure definitions, a set of XML examples or an XML DTD and produce the
1587code needed to import and export the content between C data and XML storage.
1588This is left as an exercise to the reader :-)</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1589
Daniel Veillard6f0adb52000-07-03 11:41:26 +0000[diff] [blame]1590<p>Feel free to use <a href="example/gjobread.c">the code for the full C
1591parsing example</a> as a template, it is also available with Makefile in the
1592Gnome CVS base under gnome-xml/example</p>
Daniel Veillardb05deb71999-08-10 19:04:08 +0000[diff] [blame]1593
Daniel Veillardc310d562000-06-23 18:32:15 +0000[diff] [blame]1594<h2><a name="Contributi">Contributions</a></h2>
1595<ul>
Daniel Veillard851c59c2000-11-24 16:06:22 +0000[diff] [blame]1596 <li><a href="mailto:ari@lusis.org">Ari Johnson</a> provides a C++ wrapper
Daniel Veillardc310d562000-06-23 18:32:15 +0000[diff] [blame]1597 for libxml:
1598 <p>Website: <a
1599 href="http://lusis.org/~ari/xml++/">http://lusis.org/~ari/xml++/</a></p>
1600 <p>Download: <a
1601 href="http://lusis.org/~ari/xml++/libxml++.tar.gz">http://lusis.org/~ari/xml++/libxml++.tar.gz</a></p>
1602 </li>
1603 <li><a href="mailto:doolin@cs.utk.edu">David Doolin</a> provides a
1604 precompiled Windows version
1605 <p><a
Daniel Veillardc5d64342001-06-24 12:13:24 +0000[diff] [blame]1606 href="http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~doolin/code/libxmlwin32/">http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~doolin/code/libxmlwin32/</a>
1607 (older). The distribution now includes projects and makefiles for Windows
1608 compiler contributed by various people.</p>
Daniel Veillardc310d562000-06-23 18:32:15 +0000[diff] [blame]1609 </li>
Daniel Veillarde356c282001-03-10 12:32:04 +0000[diff] [blame]1610 <li><a
1611 href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/2001-March/msg00014.html">Matt
1612 Sergeant</a> developped <a
1613 href="http://axkit.org/download/">XML::LibXSLT</a>, a perl wrapper for
1614 libxml2/libxslt as part of the <a href="http://axkit.com/">AxKit XML
1615 application server</a></li>
Daniel Veillardc5d64342001-06-24 12:13:24 +0000[diff] [blame]1616 <li><a href="mailto:fnatter@gmx.net">Felix Natter</a> and <a
1617 href="mailto:geertk@ai.rug.nl">Geert Kloosterman</a> provide <a
Daniel Veillardca989762001-06-23 17:39:29 +0000[diff] [blame]1618 href="libxml-doc.el">an emacs module</a> to lookup libxml(2) functions
Daniel Veillard3f6f7f62000-06-30 17:58:25 +0000[diff] [blame]1619 documentation</li>
Daniel Veillardc310d562000-06-23 18:32:15 +0000[diff] [blame]1620 <li><a href="mailto:sherwin@nlm.nih.gov">Ziying Sherwin</a> provided <a
Daniel Veillardc5d64342001-06-24 12:13:24 +0000[diff] [blame]1621 href="http://xmlsoft.org/messages/0488.html">man pages</a></li>
Daniel Veillard5168dbf2001-07-07 00:18:23 +0000[diff] [blame^]1622 <li>there is a module for <a
1623 href="http://acs-misc.sourceforge.net/nsxml.html">libxml/libxslt support
1624 in OpenNSD/AOLServer</a></li>
Daniel Veillardc310d562000-06-23 18:32:15 +0000[diff] [blame]1625</ul>
1626
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1627<p></p>
1628
Daniel Veillard33a67802001-03-07 09:44:02 +0000[diff] [blame]1629<p><a href="mailto:Daniel.Veillard@imag.fr">Daniel Veillard</a></p>
Daniel Veillardc8eab3a1999-09-04 18:27:23 +0000[diff] [blame]1630
Daniel Veillard5168dbf2001-07-07 00:18:23 +0000[diff] [blame^]1631<p>$Id: xml.html,v 1.99 2001/07/05 23:31:40 veillard Exp $</p>
Daniel Veillardccb09631998-10-27 06:21:04 +0000[diff] [blame]1632</body>
1633</html>