[Xenocide-programming] XML Parsing

[<chr...@ju...>]

Sorry to re-open this particular can of worms, but it is time to get an XML parser that works.

To review my earlier experiences with Xercesc.. I downloaded the Xercesc libraries and spent as long as a few months (off and on) trying to get them work.  I don't run an NT based windows and I run gcc 3.3.2 using Linux (which is what I pretty much use for everything besides some games and sound related programs).  Xercesc requires NT based Windows, and in Linux it seems broken with newer versions of gcc.  This prevented me from being able to compile any actual Xercesc code.  I did take a lot of time to go through the API and see how it worked, however.  I posted these findings to this list and moved on.  Since then I've been keeping an tried out alternative parsers.  I believe the best of which to be expat.  I downloaded, installed, and was XML parsing with expat within a matter minutes.  The interface was straightforward and seemed to have more than enough features to meet our needs.

Other open source projects that use expat for XML parsing include  Mozilla, the Perl XML parsing library, and the PHP XML parsing library. I think it's likely that our XML parsing needs won't exceed the requirements of the former pojects, so expat should be more than adequate.  It also has an intuitive interface. This is very much unlike Xerces which requires you to spend a massive amount of time learning how to interact with the libraries.  Just figuring WHICH libraries to include is difficult in Xerces.  

Expat is C based, but so are many standard C++ libraries.  I don't think that would have a negative impact.  The interface lends itself very well to object oriented programming and is usually used in C++ apps.

Well that's my 2 cents.  The question is what does everyone want to spend their time developing on?  Many classes will require an XML interface, so this is really an important aspect of the project.  Expat seems to be an excellent combination of speed, ease of use, and stability.

-chrisp

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