Time to standardize the XML library for C/C++

[Kong Bhat]

With XML becoming the de facto data description standard, I am
extremely surprised that there is no movement towards standardizing an
xml library API for use with C and C++. Personally I have been
working with libxml2 (www.gnome.org) for a while now, and I am quite
comfortable with it. I believe that libxml2 is a good start, but I
think a slimmer version of libxml2 should be standardized.
Any thoughts?

Regards,
Kong Posh

[Mark A. Odell]

In article <8d**************************@posting.google.com >, "Kong Bhat"
<kb***@sta.samsung.com> wrote:

With XML becoming the de facto data description standard, I am extremely
surprised that there is no movement towards standardizing an xml library API
for use with C and C++. Personally I have been working with libxml2
(www.gnome.org) for a while now, and I am quite comfortable with it. I
believe that libxml2 is a good start, but I think a slimmer version of
libxml2 should be standardized. Any thoughts? Regards,

Why do you feel this is a C language question? This isn't an XML advocacy ng
you know.

[Mark A. Odell]

In article <8d**************************@posting.google.com >, "Kong Bhat"
<kb***@sta.samsung.com> wrote:

With XML becoming the de facto data description standard, I am extremely
surprised that there is no movement towards standardizing an xml library API
for use with C and C++. Personally I have been working with libxml2
(www.gnome.org) for a while now, and I am quite comfortable with it. I
believe that libxml2 is a good start, but I think a slimmer version of
libxml2 should be standardized. Any thoughts? Regards,

Why do you feel this is a C language question? This isn't an XML advocacy ng
you know.

[E. Robert Tisdale]

Kong Bhat wrote:

With XML becoming the de facto data description standard,
I am extremely surprised that there is no movement
toward standardizing an xml library API for use with C and C++.
Personally, I have been working with libxml2 (www.gnome.org)
for a while now and I am quite comfortable with it.
I believe that libxml2 is a good start
but I think a slimmer version of libxml2 should be standardized.

How is this on-topic in comp.std.c, comp.lang.c or comp.lang.c++?
Do you want to make this library part of the standard library?
If so, is there a compelling reason why this library must be implemented
by the compiler developer and not a third party vendor?
If the library can be implemented by third party vendors, then
a standard separate from the C/C++ standards may be a better option.

[E. Robert Tisdale]

Kong Bhat wrote:

With XML becoming the de facto data description standard,
I am extremely surprised that there is no movement
toward standardizing an xml library API for use with C and C++.
Personally, I have been working with libxml2 (www.gnome.org)
for a while now and I am quite comfortable with it.
I believe that libxml2 is a good start
but I think a slimmer version of libxml2 should be standardized.

How is this on-topic in comp.std.c, comp.lang.c or comp.lang.c++?
Do you want to make this library part of the standard library?
If so, is there a compelling reason why this library must be implemented
by the compiler developer and not a third party vendor?
If the library can be implemented by third party vendors, then
a standard separate from the C/C++ standards may be a better option.

[Richard Tobin]

In article <8d**************************@posting.google.com >,
Kong Bhat <kb***@sta.samsung.com> wrote:

With XML becoming the de facto data description standard, I am
extremely surprised that there is no movement towards standardizing an
xml library API for use with C and C++.

It would not be appropriate to make this part of the C standard.
There are a million things that should be standardized first:
we don't even have lists or hash tables!

-- Richard

[Richard Tobin]

In article <8d**************************@posting.google.com >,
Kong Bhat <kb***@sta.samsung.com> wrote:

With XML becoming the de facto data description standard, I am
extremely surprised that there is no movement towards standardizing an
xml library API for use with C and C++.

It would not be appropriate to make this part of the C standard.
There are a million things that should be standardized first:
we don't even have lists or hash tables!

-- Richard

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Kong Bhat wrote:

... I think a slimmer version of libxml2 should be standardized.

"Feel free."

[Kong Bhat]

ri*****@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) wrote in message news:<c5**********@pc-news.cogsci.ed.ac.uk>...

In article <8d**************************@posting.google.com >,
Kong Bhat <kb***@sta.samsung.com> wrote:

With XML becoming the de facto data description standard, I am
extremely surprised that there is no movement towards standardizing an
xml library API for use with C and C++.

It would not be appropriate to make this part of the C standard.
There are a million things that should be standardized first:
we don't even have lists or hash tables!

-- Richard

Kindly note that I am only in favor of standardizing the API. There
could be multiple implementations that conform to that API (including
Richard's very own "newRXP" parser), in much the same way that we have
standard APIs for I/O handling, string manipulation, mathematical
functions etc. The big advantage of that would be that code written
to handle XML processing would become extremely portable.

I will put my money on the prediction that XML processing within C/C++
applications will take off in a very very big way in the next few
years, especially as the use of WebServices becomes more widespread.
That is why I strongly feel that the time is ripe to move towards
standardizing this API.

Regards,
Kong Posh

[James Kuyper]

Kong Bhat wrote:

With XML becoming the de facto data description standard, I am
extremely surprised that there is no movement towards standardizing an
xml library API for use with C and C++. Personally I have been
working with libxml2 (www.gnome.org) for a while now, and I am quite
comfortable with it. I believe that libxml2 is a good start, but I
think a slimmer version of libxml2 should be standardized.

Any thoughts?

That's an excellent idea - whoever is responsible for XML should
establish a standard library for generating/parsing it. Such a library
would, of course, be too specialized to have any proper place in the
C/C++ standard libraries.