RE: IDL?
Paul Grosso (paul@arbortext.com)
Tue, 30 Dec 1997 11:01:58 -0500
At 11:53 1997 12 29 -0500, David Megginson wrote:
>Gavin Nicol writes:
>
> > >If we omit comments, then SAX-J would have to return only the
> > >following information:
> > >
> > >- elements
> > >- attributes
> > >- PIs
> > >- texts
> >
> > I would recommend that you also leave in comments. That would allow
> > you to build a DOM representation, and write it out again such that
> > it would be very close to the original.
>
>My guess is that the level-one DOM includes comments only to support
>messed-up HTML-related tools that hide what should be processing
>instructions in comments. I don't know if we really want to dirty
>ourselves with this in XML, unless we can come up with a compelling reason.
Your guess is wrong.
The DOM has several reference applications including editors and
data repositories, and retention of comments is a requirement for
these applications. This is true for XML and has nothing to do
with "dirty" use of comments in HTML.
paul