[Python-Dev] minidom and DOM level 2

[Jason Orendorff]

On 4/7/07, Andrew Clover <and-dev at doxdesk.com> wrote:
> Jason Orendorff wrote:
> > OK, I think this is worthwhile then. :) I'll read the spec and submit
> > a patch.
>
> You're planning to implement EntityReference in minidom? That'll be fun!
> :-) One of the nastier corners of DOM and XML in general.

Mmm.  So I'm finding.  EntityReferences seem to force detailed knowledge
of entity handling into the DOM implementation.  expat doesn't expose
the information in a particularly helpful way.  In a word, blaargh.

I'd be happy to set this aside and work on Level 1 compliance:

> Incidentally minidom falls far short of passing even Level 1 Core for
> more reasons than omission of EntityReference. I noted the main known
> problems with it here:
>    http://pyxml.sourceforge.net/topics/compliance.html

Very nice.  Thanks for posting this.  I don't suppose you'd be willing to
update it for Python 2.5, would you?

Martin, have you looked at this?

Some of these might be hard to fix, given expat.

-j