On Aug 7, 2009, at 9:34 AM, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 9:09 AM, Robert Koberg<> wrote:
>
>> How do you get/set a start or end tag in an XML context? Do you?
>
> You don't. Getting and setting are concepts of some programming
> languages. They are not concepts that are relevant to XML as XML. They
> are not concepts that are relevant to XML as XML.
>
>> In a DOM (W3, XOM, dom4j, etc) or transformation language (like XSL
>> or
>> Xquery), there is no concept of a start or end tag. The only place
>> a start
>> or end tag comes into play is in a SAX style. There they are events
>> that can
>> be consumed or emitted.
>
> They aren't in SAX either. The events are named startElement and
> endElement for good reason.
Well, exactly!
So, why define tags the way the wikipedia article (or the w3) does?
Why define them at all?
That is why I wrote that they should be considered more like events.
Though, as you point out, the events would be even better defined as
startElement/endElement as they are in SAX.
best,
-Rob
