CODEWITHSUNDEEP
xmlxml-parsingsubsetspecificationsmicroxml
Jens Bannmann
Jens Bannmann

Reputation: 5115

Are there specifications for simplified subsets of XML?

When I first heard about the W3C-backed MicroXML, I thought of an idea I read somewhere years ago: a simpler subset of the XML specification without attributes (and without namespaces IIRC). The theory is that such a spec would allow simpler, faster and more memory-efficient parser implementations which can be used in situations where full XML is perceived as too heavy, and most of its features are not needed.

However, it turns out MicroXML is not that simple - while it is simpler, it does retain attributes, for example.

So does something like this exist? A spec? An implementation (preferably in Java)? The closest thing I've found is XML-- (XML minus minus) by Christopher Diggins, but that seems to have never taken off.

Note: I do realize that JSON or several other formats could be used in situations I describe. Out of curiousity, though, I am interested in an XML subset, which is readable by regular XML parsers and can be (even when parsed by the "reduced" special parser) accessed through DOM or SAX APIs.

Upvotes: 5

Views: 280

Answers (1)

cdiggins
cdiggins

Reputation: 18243

I'm the one who proposed the ideas of XML-- In the end I have found that JSON satisfied exactly my needs and I did not pursue the XML specification. I preferred JSON because it could be rapidly parsed by Javascript implementations, was much less verbose than XML, and could be trivially converted to XML as needed.

Upvotes: 2

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