Re: [HACKERS] New XML section for documentation

On 8/26/06, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> wrote:
> Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > I made it clear in the section that the XML syntax was being checked,
> > not validation against a schema. You want Check and Validation
> > sections?
>
> "Valid" and "well-formed" have very specific distinct meanings in XML.
> (Note that "check" doesn't have any meaning there.) We will eventually
> want a method to verify both the validity and the well-formedness.
>
> I think that a function called xml_valid checks for well-formedness is
> an outright bug and needs to be fixed.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. xml_valid() is wrong name and
it may confuse people.
I what to add that, with XML section in the documentation, this bug
becomes more significant.

Bruce suggested to use overload to keep backward compat. - in other
words, 1-arg function for checking for well-formedness and 2-arg
function for validation process. That's bad too:
- two _different_ actions for one function => another confusion
- I (as a user) would think that 1-arg function is designed for
validation process for cases when XML document contains a reference to
DTD (as an example).

I stand for fixing it via renaming, breaking backward compatibility.
Later it will be more painful.

BTW, what is the deadline for changes (additions) in docs? I would add
general XML terms (such as what is XML, what is well-formed document,
what is validation; short overview of XML standards and SQL/XML as a
part of SQL:200n, etc Maybe about contrib/xml2 installation process -
actually, XSLT support requires additional lib). Moreover, if SQL/XML
patch will be accepted it will require several words too.
--
Best regards,
Nikolay