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Daniel Veillardd49370e2005-04-11 23:28:16 +0000[diff] [blame]10</style><title>FAQ</title></head><body bgcolor="#8b7765" text="#000000" link="#a06060" vlink="#000000"><table border="0" width="100%" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" align="center"><tr><td width="120"><a href="http://swpat.ffii.org/"><img src="epatents.png" alt="Action against software patents" /></a></td><td width="180"><a href="http://www.gnome.org/"><img src="gnome2.png" alt="Gnome2 Logo" /></a><a href="http://www.w3.org/Status"><img src="w3c.png" alt="W3C Logo" /></a><a href="http://www.redhat.com/"><img src="redhat.gif" alt="Red Hat Logo" /></a><div align="left"><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/"><img src="Libxml2-Logo-180x168.gif" alt="Made with Libxml2 Logo" /></a></div></td><td><table border="0" width="90%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="center" bgcolor="#000000"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" bgcolor="#fffacd"><tr><td align="center"><h1>The XML C parser and toolkit of Gnome</h1><h2>FAQ</h2></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td></tr></table><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%" align="center"><tr><td bgcolor="#8b7765"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="100%"><tr><td valign="top" width="200" bgcolor="#8b7765"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" width="100%" bgcolor="#000000"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3"><tr><td colspan="1" bgcolor="#eecfa1" align="center"><center><b>Main Menu</b></center></td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="#fffacd"><form action="search.php" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" method="get"><input name="query" type="text" size="20" value="" /><input name="submit" type="submit" value="Search ..." /></form><ul><li><a href="index.html">Home</a></li><li><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/wiki">Wiki</a></li><li><a href="html/index.html">Reference Manual</a></li><li><a href="intro.html">Introduction</a></li><li><a href="FAQ.html">FAQ</a></li><li><a href="docs.html" style="font-weight:bold">Developer Menu</a></li><li><a href="bugs.html">Reporting bugs and getting help</a></li><li><a href="help.html">How to help</a></li><li><a href="downloads.html">Downloads</a></li><li><a href="news.html">Releases</a></li><li><a href="XMLinfo.html">XML</a></li><li><a href="XSLT.html">XSLT</a></li><li><a href="xmldtd.html">Validation &amp; DTDs</a></li><li><a href="encoding.html">Encodings support</a></li><li><a href="catalog.html">Catalog support</a></li><li><a href="namespaces.html">Namespaces</a></li><li><a href="contribs.html">Contributions</a></li><li><a href="examples/index.html" style="font-weight:bold">Code Examples</a></li><li><a href="html/index.html" style="font-weight:bold">API Menu</a></li><li><a href="guidelines.html">XML Guidelines</a></li><li><a href="ChangeLog.html">Recent Changes</a></li></ul></td></tr></table><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3"><tr><td colspan="1" bgcolor="#eecfa1" align="center"><center><b>Related links</b></center></td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="#fffacd"><ul><li><a href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/">Mail archive</a></li><li><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/">XSLT libxslt</a></li><li><a href="http://phd.cs.unibo.it/gdome2/">DOM gdome2</a></li><li><a href="http://www.aleksey.com/xmlsec/">XML-DSig xmlsec</a></li><li><a href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/">FTP</a></li><li><a href="http://www.zlatkovic.com/projects/libxml/">Windows binaries</a></li><li><a href="http://www.blastwave.org/packages.php/libxml2">Solaris binaries</a></li><li><a href="http://www.explain.com.au/oss/libxml2xslt.html">MacOsX binaries</a></li><li><a href="http://libxmlplusplus.sourceforge.net/">C++ bindings</a></li><li><a href="http://www.zend.com/php5/articles/php5-xmlphp.php#Heading4">PHP bindings</a></li><li><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/libxml2-pas/">Pascal bindings</a></li><li><a href="http://rubyforge.org/projects/xml-tools/">Ruby bindings</a></li><li><a href="http://tclxml.sourceforge.net/">Tcl bindings</a></li><li><a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=libxml2">Bug Tracker</a></li></ul></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td><td valign="top" bgcolor="#8b7765"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" width="100%"><tr><td><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" width="100%" bgcolor="#000000"><tr><td><table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" width="100%"><tr><td bgcolor="#fffacd"><p>Table of Contents:</p><ul><li><a href="FAQ.html#License">License(s)</a></li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]11 <li><a href="FAQ.html#Installati">Installation</a></li>
12 <li><a href="FAQ.html#Compilatio">Compilation</a></li>
13 <li><a href="FAQ.html#Developer">Developer corner</a></li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]14</ul><h3><a name="License" id="License">License</a>(s)</h3><ol><li><em>Licensing Terms for libxml</em>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000[diff] [blame]15 <p>libxml2 is released under the <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html">MIT
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]16 License</a>; see the file Copyright in the distribution for the precise
Daniel Veillardc575b992002-02-08 13:28:40 +0000[diff] [blame]17 wording</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]18 </li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000[diff] [blame]19 <li><em>Can I embed libxml2 in a proprietary application ?</em>
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000[diff] [blame]20 <p>Yes. The MIT License allows you to keep proprietary the changes you
21 made to libxml, but it would be graceful to send-back bug fixes and
22 improvements as patches for possible incorporation in the main
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]23 development tree.</p>
24 </li>
Daniel Veillard95c09d92003-07-07 12:11:06 +0000[diff] [blame]25</ol><h3><a name="Installati" id="Installati">Installation</a></h3><ol><li><strong><span style="background-color: #FF0000">Do Not Use
26 libxml1</span></strong>, use libxml2</li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]27 <li><em>Where can I get libxml</em> ?
Daniel Veillard024f1992003-12-10 16:43:49 +0000[diff] [blame]28 <p>The original distribution comes from <a href="ftp://rpmfind.net/pub/libxml/">rpmfind.net</a> or <a href="ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/libxml2/2.6/">gnome.org</a></p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]29 <p>Most Linux and BSD distributions include libxml, this is probably the
30 safer way for end-users to use libxml.</p>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]31 <p>David Doolin provides precompiled Windows versions at <a href="http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~doolin/code/libxmlwin32/ ">http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~doolin/code/libxmlwin32/</a></p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]32 </li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]33 <li><em>I see libxml and libxml2 releases, which one should I install ?</em>
34 <ul><li>If you are not constrained by backward compatibility issues with
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000[diff] [blame]35 existing applications, install libxml2 only</li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]36 <li>If you are not doing development, you can safely install both.
37 Usually the packages <a href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/libxml.html">libxml</a> and <a href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/libxml2.html">libxml2</a> are
38 compatible (this is not the case for development packages).</li>
39 <li>If you are a developer and your system provides separate packaging
Daniel Veillard008186f2001-09-13 14:24:44 +0000[diff] [blame]40 for shared libraries and the development components, it is possible
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000[diff] [blame]41 to install libxml and libxml2, and also <a href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/libxml-devel.html">libxml-devel</a>
42 and <a href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/libxml2-devel.html">libxml2-devel</a>
Daniel Veillard480363b2001-03-16 22:04:15 +0000[diff] [blame]43 too for libxml2 &gt;= 2.3.0</li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]44 <li>If you are developing a new application, please develop against
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]45 libxml2(-devel)</li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]46 </ul></li>
47 <li><em>I can't install the libxml package, it conflicts with libxml0</em>
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]48 <p>You probably have an old libxml0 package used to provide the shared
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000[diff] [blame]49 library for libxml.so.0, you can probably safely remove it. The libxml
50 packages provided on <a href="ftp://rpmfind.net/pub/libxml/">rpmfind.net</a> provide
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]51 libxml.so.0</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]52 </li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]53 <li><em>I can't install the libxml(2) RPM package due to failed
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000[diff] [blame]54 dependencies</em>
55 <p>The most generic solution is to re-fetch the latest src.rpm , and
Daniel Veillardc654d602001-05-01 12:42:26 +0000[diff] [blame]56 rebuild it locally with</p>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]57 <p><code>rpm --rebuild libxml(2)-xxx.src.rpm</code>.</p>
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000[diff] [blame]58 <p>If everything goes well it will generate two binary rpm packages (one
59 providing the shared libs and xmllint, and the other one, the -devel
60 package, providing includes, static libraries and scripts needed to build
Daniel Veillardc654d602001-05-01 12:42:26 +0000[diff] [blame]61 applications with libxml(2)) that you can install locally.</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]62 </li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000[diff] [blame]63</ol><h3><a name="Compilatio" id="Compilatio">Compilation</a></h3><ol><li><em>What is the process to compile libxml2 ?</em>
Daniel Veillard024f1992003-12-10 16:43:49 +0000[diff] [blame]64 <p>As most UNIX libraries libxml2 follows the "standard":</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]65 <p><code>gunzip -c xxx.tar.gz | tar xvf -</code></p>
66 <p><code>cd libxml-xxxx</code></p>
67 <p><code>./configure --help</code></p>
68 <p>to see the options, then the compilation/installation proper</p>
69 <p><code>./configure [possible options]</code></p>
70 <p><code>make</code></p>
71 <p><code>make install</code></p>
72 <p>At that point you may have to rerun ldconfig or a similar utility to
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]73 update your list of installed shared libs.</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]74 </li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000[diff] [blame]75 <li><em>What other libraries are needed to compile/install libxml2 ?</em>
76 <p>Libxml2 does not require any other library, the normal C ANSI API
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]77 should be sufficient (please report any violation to this rule you may
78 find).</p>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000[diff] [blame]79 <p>However if found at configuration time libxml2 will detect and use the
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]80 following libs:</p>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]81 <ul><li><a href="http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/zlib/">libz</a> : a
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]82 highly portable and available widely compression library.</li>
83 <li>iconv: a powerful character encoding conversion library. It is
84 included by default in recent glibc libraries, so it doesn't need to
85 be installed specifically on Linux. It now seems a <a href="http://www.opennc.org/onlinepubs/7908799/xsh/iconv.html">part
Daniel Veillarddad3f682002-11-17 16:47:27 +0000[diff] [blame]86 of the official UNIX</a> specification. Here is one <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/">implementation of the
87 library</a> which source can be found <a href="ftp://ftp.ilog.fr/pub/Users/haible/gnu/">here</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]88 </ul></li>
89 <li><em>Make check fails on some platforms</em>
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000[diff] [blame]90 <p>Sometimes the regression tests' results don't completely match the
91 value produced by the parser, and the makefile uses diff to print the
92 delta. On some platforms the diff return breaks the compilation process;
93 if the diff is small this is probably not a serious problem.</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]94 <p>Sometimes (especially on Solaris) make checks fail due to limitations
Daniel Veillarde46182c2002-02-12 14:29:11 +0000[diff] [blame]95 in make. Try using GNU-make instead.</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]96 </li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]97 <li><em>I use the CVS version and there is no configure script</em>
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000[diff] [blame]98 <p>The configure script (and other Makefiles) are generated. Use the
99 autogen.sh script to regenerate the configure script and Makefiles,
100 like:</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]101 <p><code>./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --disable-shared</code></p>
102 </li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]103 <li><em>I have troubles when running make tests with gcc-3.0</em>
Daniel Veillard7b06bcb2001-06-22 16:03:51 +0000[diff] [blame]104 <p>It seems the initial release of gcc-3.0 has a problem with the
105 optimizer which miscompiles the URI module. Please use another
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]106 compiler.</p>
107 </li>
Daniel Veillard93d95252003-04-29 20:25:40 +0000[diff] [blame]108</ol><h3><a name="Developer" id="Developer">Developer</a> corner</h3><ol><li><em>Troubles compiling or linking programs using libxml2</em>
109 <p>Usually the problem comes from the fact that the compiler doesn't get
110 the right compilation or linking flags. There is a small shell script
111 <code>xml2-config</code> which is installed as part of libxml2 usual
Daniel Veillard95c09d92003-07-07 12:11:06 +0000[diff] [blame]112 install process which provides those flags. Use</p>
Daniel Veillard93d95252003-04-29 20:25:40 +0000[diff] [blame]113 <p><code>xml2-config --cflags</code></p>
114 <p>to get the compilation flags and</p>
115 <p><code>xml2-config --libs</code></p>
116 <p>to get the linker flags. Usually this is done directly from the
117 Makefile as:</p>
118 <p><code>CFLAGS=`xml2-config --cflags`</code></p>
119 <p><code>LIBS=`xml2-config --libs`</code></p>
120 </li>
William M. Brack99906ad2005-01-09 17:02:42 +0000[diff] [blame]121 <li><em>I want to install my own copy of libxml2 in my home directory and link
122 my programs against it, but it doesn't work</em>
123 <p>There are many different ways to accomplish this. Here is one way to
124 do this under Linux. Suppose your home directory is <code>/home/user.
125 </code>Then:</p>
126 <ul><li>Create a subdirectory, let's call it <code>myxml</code></li>
127 <li>unpack the libxml2 distribution into that subdirectory</li>
128 <li>chdir into the unpacked distribution (<code>/home/user/myxml/libxml2
129 </code>)</li>
130 <li>configure the library using the "<code>--prefix</code>" switch,
131 specifying an installation subdirectory in <code>/home/user/myxml</code>,
132 e.g.
133 <p><code>./configure --prefix /home/user/myxml/xmlinst</code> {other
134 configuration options}</p></li>
135 <li>now run <code>make</code> followed by <code>make install</code></li>
136 <li>At this point, the installation subdirectory contains the complete
137 "private" include files, library files and binary program files (e.g.
138 xmllint), located in
139 <p> <code>/home/user/myxml/xmlinst/lib, /home/user/myxml/xmlinst/include
140 </code> and <code> /home/user/myxml/xmlinst/bin</code></p>
141 respectively.</li>
142 <li>In order to use this "private" library, you should first add it
143 to the beginning of your default PATH (so that your own private
144 program files such as xmllint will be used instead of the normal
145 system ones). To do this, the Bash command would be
146 <p><code>export PATH=/home/user/myxml/xmlinst/bin:$PATH</code></p></li>
147 <li>Now suppose you have a program <code>test1.c</code> that you would
148 like to compile with your "private" library. Simply compile it
149 using the command <p><code>gcc `xml2-config --cflags --libs` -o test
150 test.c</code></p> Note that, because your PATH has been set with <code>
151 /home/user/myxml/xmlinst/bin</code> at the beginning, the
152 xml2-config program which you just installed will be used instead of
153 the system default one, and this will <em>automatically</em> get the
154 correct libraries linked with your program.</li></ul></li><p></p>
Daniel Veillard93d95252003-04-29 20:25:40 +0000[diff] [blame]155 <li><em>xmlDocDump() generates output on one line.</em>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000[diff] [blame]156 <p>Libxml2 will not <strong>invent</strong> spaces in the content of a
Daniel Veillard008186f2001-09-13 14:24:44 +0000[diff] [blame]157 document since <strong>all spaces in the content of a document are
158 significant</strong>. If you build a tree from the API and want
159 indentation:</p>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]160 <ol><li>the correct way is to generate those yourself too.</li>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000[diff] [blame]161 <li>the dangerous way is to ask libxml2 to add those blanks to your
Daniel Veillard008186f2001-09-13 14:24:44 +0000[diff] [blame]162 content <strong>modifying the content of your document in the
163 process</strong>. The result may not be what you expect. There is
164 <strong>NO</strong> way to guarantee that such a modification won't
Daniel Veillard5373ea12003-07-24 13:09:13 +0000[diff] [blame]165 affect other parts of the content of your document. See <a href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-parser.html#xmlKeepBlanksDefault">xmlKeepBlanksDefault
166 ()</a> and <a href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#xmlSaveFormatFile">xmlSaveFormatFile
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]167 ()</a></li>
168 </ol></li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]169 <li>Extra nodes in the document:
Daniel Veillard62bccd52001-02-10 09:40:10 +0000[diff] [blame]170 <p><em>For a XML file as below:</em></p>
Daniel Veillard024f1992003-12-10 16:43:49 +0000[diff] [blame]171 <pre>&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
172&lt;PLAN xmlns="http://www.argus.ca/autotest/1.0/"&gt;
173&lt;NODE CommFlag="0"/&gt;
174&lt;NODE CommFlag="1"/&gt;
Daniel Veillard62bccd52001-02-10 09:40:10 +0000[diff] [blame]175&lt;/PLAN&gt;</pre>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]176 <p><em>after parsing it with the function
Daniel Veillard480363b2001-03-16 22:04:15 +0000[diff] [blame]177 pxmlDoc=xmlParseFile(...);</em></p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]178 <p><em>I want to the get the content of the first node (node with the
Daniel Veillard024f1992003-12-10 16:43:49 +0000[diff] [blame]179 CommFlag="0")</em></p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]180 <p><em>so I did it as following;</em></p>
181 <pre>xmlNodePtr pnode;
Daniel Veillard62bccd52001-02-10 09:40:10 +0000[diff] [blame]182pnode=pxmlDoc-&gt;children-&gt;children;</pre>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]183 <p><em>but it does not work. If I change it to</em></p>
184 <pre>pnode=pxmlDoc-&gt;children-&gt;children-&gt;next;</pre>
185 <p><em>then it works. Can someone explain it to me.</em></p>
Daniel Veillard6581e1b2003-02-09 22:21:43 +0000[diff] [blame]186 <p></p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]187 <p>In XML all characters in the content of the document are significant
Daniel Veillard7f41b3e2001-02-10 09:35:37 +0000[diff] [blame]188 <strong>including blanks and formatting line breaks</strong>.</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]189 <p>The extra nodes you are wondering about are just that, text nodes with
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000[diff] [blame]190 the formatting spaces which are part of the document but that people tend
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000[diff] [blame]191 to forget. There is a function <a href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-parser.html">xmlKeepBlanksDefault
Daniel Veillard7f41b3e2001-02-10 09:35:37 +0000[diff] [blame]192 ()</a> to remove those at parse time, but that's an heuristic, and its
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]193 use should be limited to cases where you are certain there is no
Daniel Veillard008186f2001-09-13 14:24:44 +0000[diff] [blame]194 mixed-content in the document.</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]195 </li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]196 <li><em>I get compilation errors of existing code like when accessing
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]197 <strong>root</strong> or <strong>child fields</strong> of nodes.</em>
Daniel Veillard3f3b4f32001-03-13 15:12:39 +0000[diff] [blame]198 <p>You are compiling code developed for libxml version 1 and using a
199 libxml2 development environment. Either switch back to libxml v1 devel or
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000[diff] [blame]200 even better fix the code to compile with libxml2 (or both) by <a href="upgrade.html">following the instructions</a>.</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]201 </li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]202 <li><em>I get compilation errors about non existing
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]203 <strong>xmlRootNode</strong> or <strong>xmlChildrenNode</strong>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]204 fields.</em>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000[diff] [blame]205 <p>The source code you are using has been <a href="upgrade.html">upgraded</a> to be able to compile with both libxml
Daniel Veillard008186f2001-09-13 14:24:44 +0000[diff] [blame]206 and libxml2, but you need to install a more recent version:
207 libxml(-devel) &gt;= 1.8.8 or libxml2(-devel) &gt;= 2.1.0</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]208 </li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]209 <li><em>XPath implementation looks seriously broken</em>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]210 <p>XPath implementation prior to 2.3.0 was really incomplete. Upgrade to
211 a recent version, there are no known bugs in the current version.</p>
212 </li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]213 <li><em>The example provided in the web page does not compile.</em>
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]214 <p>It's hard to maintain the documentation in sync with the code
Daniel Veillarde9202a02000-10-16 16:58:19 +0000[diff] [blame]215 &lt;grin/&gt; ...</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]216 <p>Check the previous points 1/ and 2/ raised before, and please send
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]217 patches.</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]218 </li>
Daniel Veillard8d7b5c72003-11-15 18:24:36 +0000[diff] [blame]219 <li><em>Where can I get more examples and information than provided on the
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000[diff] [blame]220 web page?</em>
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000[diff] [blame]221 <p>Ideally a libxml2 book would be nice. I have no such plan ... But you
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]222 can:</p>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]223 <ul><li>check more deeply the <a href="html/libxml-lib.html">existing
224 generated doc</a></li>
Daniel Veillardc480c4e2003-12-10 13:24:38 +0000[diff] [blame]225 <li>have a look at <a href="examples/index.html">the set of
226 examples</a>.</li>
227 <li>look for examples of use for libxml2 function using the Gnome code.
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]228 For example the following will query the full Gnome CVS base for the
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]229 use of the <strong>xmlAddChild()</strong> function:
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000[diff] [blame]230 <p><a href="http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/search?string=xmlAddChild">http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/search?string=xmlAddChild</a></p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]231 <p>This may be slow, a large hardware donation to the gnome project
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]232 could cure this :-)</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]233 </li>
Daniel Veillardc480c4e2003-12-10 13:24:38 +0000[diff] [blame]234 <li><a href="http://cvs.gnome.org/bonsai/rview.cgi?cvsroot=/cvs/gnome&amp;dir=gnome-xml">Browse
235 the libxml2 source</a> , I try to write code as clean and documented
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000[diff] [blame]236 as possible, so looking at it may be helpful. In particular the code
237 of xmllint.c and of the various testXXX.c test programs should
238 provide good examples of how to do things with the library.</li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]239 </ul></li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]240 <li>What about C++ ?
Daniel Veillard8a469172003-06-12 16:05:07 +0000[diff] [blame]241 <p>libxml2 is written in pure C in order to allow easy reuse on a number
Daniel Veillard008186f2001-09-13 14:24:44 +0000[diff] [blame]242 of platforms, including embedded systems. I don't intend to convert to
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]243 C++.</p>
Daniel Veillard91e69c52003-08-04 01:43:07 +0000[diff] [blame]244 <p>There is however a C++ wrapper which may fulfill your needs:</p>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]245 <ul><li>by Ari Johnson &lt;ari@btigate.com&gt;:
Daniel Veillard91e69c52003-08-04 01:43:07 +0000[diff] [blame]246 <p>Website: <a href="http://libxmlplusplus.sourceforge.net/">http://libxmlplusplus.sourceforge.net/</a></p>
247 <p>Download: <a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=12999">http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=12999</a></p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]248 </li>
Daniel Veillard83ee40d2003-08-09 22:24:09 +0000[diff] [blame]249 <!-- Website is currently unavailable as of 2003-08-02
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]250 <li>by Peter Jones &lt;pjones@pmade.org&gt;
Daniel Veillard83ee40d2003-08-09 22:24:09 +0000[diff] [blame]251 <p>Website: <a
252 href="http://pmade.org/pjones/software/xmlwrapp/">http://pmade.org/pjones/software/xmlwrapp/</a></p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]253 </li>
Daniel Veillarde2811272004-10-19 09:04:23 +0000[diff] [blame]254 -->
255 </ul></li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]256 <li>How to validate a document a posteriori ?
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]257 <p>It is possible to validate documents which had not been validated at
Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +0000[diff] [blame]258 initial parsing time or documents which have been built from scratch
Daniel Veillard5373ea12003-07-24 13:09:13 +0000[diff] [blame]259 using the API. Use the <a href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-valid.html#xmlValidateDtd">xmlValidateDtd()</a>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000[diff] [blame]260 function. It is also possible to simply add a DTD to an existing
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]261 document:</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]262 <pre>xmlDocPtr doc; /* your existing document */
263xmlDtdPtr dtd = xmlParseDTD(NULL, filename_of_dtd); /* parse the DTD */
264
Daniel Veillard024f1992003-12-10 16:43:49 +0000[diff] [blame]265 dtd-&gt;name = xmlStrDup((xmlChar*)"root_name"); /* use the given root */
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]266
Daniel Veillarde9202a02000-10-16 16:58:19 +0000[diff] [blame]267 doc-&gt;intSubset = dtd;
268 if (doc-&gt;children == NULL) xmlAddChild((xmlNodePtr)doc, (xmlNodePtr)dtd);
269 else xmlAddPrevSibling(doc-&gt;children, (xmlNodePtr)dtd);
Daniel Veillardaf743792000-07-01 11:49:28 +0000[diff] [blame]270 </pre>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]271 </li>
Daniel Veillard024f1992003-12-10 16:43:49 +0000[diff] [blame]272 <li>So what is this funky "xmlChar" used all the time?
Daniel Veillarddad3f682002-11-17 16:47:27 +0000[diff] [blame]273 <p>It is a null terminated sequence of utf-8 characters. And only utf-8!
274 You need to convert strings encoded in different ways to utf-8 before
275 passing them to the API. This can be accomplished with the iconv library
276 for instance.</p>
John Fleck61f6fb62002-10-31 15:23:29 +0000[diff] [blame]277 </li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000[diff] [blame]278 <li>etc ...</li>
Daniel Veillard1177ca42003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000[diff] [blame]279</ol><p></p><p><a href="bugs.html">Daniel Veillard</a></p></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></body></html>