[MacPerl] MacPerl and XML Modules

[Arved Sandstrom <Arved_37@chebucto.ns.ca>]

Here's a status report on roughly where we stand with XML modules and 
MacPerl.

XML-Parser-2.20 is available at <http://pudge.net/mmp>. This is the key 
module you want to have if you're going to do anything with XML and 
MacPerl. It's the only _binary_ you're going to need.

XML::Parser returns XML according to the XML spec. What this means for us 
is that if you print XML, the linefeeds are going to be Unix newlines (hex 
\xA). You'll see them. This is not a bug - right now XML::Parser should be 
doing this (note the "right now"). This behaviour will carry over into 
other XML modules.

XML::Dumper, XML::DOM and XML::XQL are all quite stable now, and well worth 
playing with. The latter requires Parse::Yapp and Date::Manip - these work 
just fine on MacOS. I do have one piece of advice regarding Date::Manip - 
there is configuration involved, and you should do this, and run at least 
some of the tests in that module, before using XML::XQL.

If yu're using *any* method that returns XML, and you actually want to 
print it out as a string to the display, you're going to have to use 

$string =~ tr/\012/\n/;

or something similar at present. If you use the methods a lot, you may want 
to add this code right into them. Example methods are 
XML::XQL::Debug::str() and XML::DOM::toString(). You'll know them if you 
use them. :-)

XML::XQL in particular wants a lot of memory. It includes a lot of other 
modules. I run MP in 20 megs when I use XML::XQL, and Toolserver still 
kicks in! So be advised. :-)

If you'd like to play with something neat, check out CGI-XMLForm-0.07. 
CGI::XMLForm subclasses CGI.pm. It can generate XML from a web form, or 
vice versa. Down the road one will also be able to have this module 
generate the form based on a DTD (Document Type Definition) - right now 
it's more hardwired. But it's cool nonetheless. I tested CGI::XMLForm using 
QuidProQuo loopback and Internet Explorer, converting the example Perl 
script into a MacPerl CGI, and it worked just fine.

I'll have update reports on a regular basis, and I hope to come out with a 
MacPerl + XML overview sometime soon. All my future traffic related to XML 
modules and how they click with MP will be on the macperl-modules list, so 
please look for it there.

If you're messing around with XML and MacPerl and have questions, please 
ask. I also have pointers to a lot of XML resources, not necessarily 
restricted to MacPerl or even Perl or even MacOS, so please ask about that 
too, if you're interested in what's going on with XML.

Arved

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