Re: Is DOM vs SAX a red herring?

[Scott Lawrence <scott-xmlconf@skrb.org>]

Karl Auerbach <karl@cavebear.com> writes:

> From my experience with doing SNMP set operations, the major job of the
> agent is to gather all the pieces of the proposed configuration change
> together and do a consistency analysis.  That kind of testing can easily
> be the largest part of the agent in a managed device.
> 
> If one is doing that kind of evaluation of the proposed configuration data
> - and I suggest that any device that doesn't do it is taking quite a risk
> - then there will be a time when most of the proposed configuration data
> is going to have to be simultaneously resident in memory.
> 
> It seems to me, therefore, that I am going to be paying the memory price
> of a DOM-like data tree even if I use SAX.

But by that time, you've been able to convert the text of the XML into
an internal and much more compact form - you don't need to keep the
full text around.  In order to resolve the namespaces correctly, you
need the full text (at least up to the end of the start/empty
element.  

The general rule of using attributes primarily as modifiers has
proven to be a good one even in traditional document production
applications.  But as others have said, it's advice to the unwary, not
a hard and fast rule.

-- 
Scott Lawrence        
  Actively seeking work 
  http://skrb.org/scott/
  [ <lawrence@world.std.com> is deprecated ]


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