-----Original Message-----
From: James Clark <jjc@jclark.com>
To: xml-dev Mailing List <xml-dev@ic.ac.uk>
Date: Sunday, March 22, 1998 3:46 AM
Subject: Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Proposed SAX Revisions
>David Megginson wrote:
>
>> 2) there is no way to obtain contextual information (system id, line
>> number, etc.) for reporting application errors;
>
>I have mixed feelings about this. I think this is useful information
>for some applications. On other hand, I don't think XML parsers are
>under any obligation to provide this information; it has a cost in terms
>of performance and complexity and parser writers may decide that, for
>their target market, it's not worth this cost. I don't think SAX should
>be impossible to implement on top of such parsers. Also SAX is supposed
>to be simple. Adding a Location argument to every single callback is a
>very significant increase in complexity. Moreover it complicates the
>use of SAX for all applications, even those (I guess the majority) that
>are aren't interested in this location information. Unless a better way
>can be found to do this, I don't think this functionality should be
>added.
>
>James