Re: SAX and delayed entity loading

Gabe Beged-Dov (david@megginson.com)
Thu, 3 Dec 1998 11:17:57 -0500 (EST)


Gabe Beged-Dov writes:

> What should a non-validating SAX parser do with the external entity if it
> isn't going to try to resolve it? The XML spec (sec.4.4.3) says the
> processormust inform the application that the entity has been encountered.

This has been pointed out as either a design flaw or feature in SAX,
depending on whether you consider the EntityResolver to be part of the
application or part of the parser. SAX forces the choice about
resolving external entities to be made by the SAX client, not by the
SAX driver (the client can choose to ignore an external entity by
returning an empty character stream).

All the best,

David

-- 
David Megginson                 david@megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/