[XML-SIG] SAX Support

[Paul Prescod]

Weird email problems today...here we go again

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: SAX Support
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 10:24:53 -0700
From: Paul Prescod <paul@prescod.net>
To: "xml-sig@python.org" <xml-sig@python.org>

Let's be clear on what we need for SAX support in Python 1.6. Here's the
formal documentation for Python SAX:

http://www.garshol.priv.no/download/software/saxlib/sax2/saxlib.html

It looks solid to me. This makes sense because Lars has a lot of
experience and was also building on the Java API. I think that our SAX
support will be a single file/module called "saxparser". It will contain
a driver for PyExpat, exception handling and default classes.

The following classes are deprecated and thus will be ignored:
AttributeList, Parser, DocumentHandler

The following classes address features more complex/esoteric than we
should undertake to code, test and document: DTDHandler, DeclHandler,
EntityResolver, LexicalHandler, Locator

These two classes are more useful in a statically typed environment:
XMLFilter, InputSource

That leaves:

#1. Attributes: 
	This is implemented as a wrapper on two dictionaries:
		Qname->value
		(URL, Localname)->value

#2. ContentHandler: PyExpat will have a SAX 2 mode that uses 
		ContentHandler calling conventions.
		A no-op base content handler will be provided

#3. ErrorHandler: A default error handler will be provided.

#4. various exception classes: provided 

#5. XMLReader: A PyExpat driver will implement this interface.

Most of this is just packaging of code we already have. I plan to get
what I can from Lars, the xml-sig distribution and elsewhere and
integrate it tomorrow. I'd like to try for a checkin on Wednesday or
Thursday. Does that plan make sense? Does this SAX subset make sense?

-- 
 Paul Prescod - Not encumbered by corporate consensus
The "war on drugs" began as a rhetorical flourish used by Richard 
Nixon...  But as the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations 
poured billions of dollars into fighting drugs, the slogan slipped 
the reins of metaphor to become just a plain old war - with an 
army (DEA), an enemy (profiled minorities, the poor, the cities), 
a budget ($17.8 billion), and a shibboleth (the children).
	- "This is your bill of rights...on drugs", Harper's, Dec 1999