Re: [Caml-list] XML library for validating MathML

[Dario Teixeira <darioteixeira@yahoo.com>]

Hi,

First of all, thanks to all for your input -- it was much appreciated.

I second many people's opinion that XML -- though conceptually a good and
well-intentioned idea --- has devolved into a festering plague whose tentacles
have unfortunately spread all around the IT landscape.  I'm finding that the
lispy alternative offered by Sexplib is much saner for most serialisation
and data exchange purposes, and that if you need human-readability than a
format like JSON is much friendlier.

Unfortunately, I have to deal with MathML because I am building a web
application (with Ocsigen) that allows users to enter mathematical expressions
in either TeX or MathML format.  To prevent cross-site scripting attacks,
I need to make sure the MathML provided by the user is valid and does not
contain any "funny stuff".

As for Xml-light, thanks for confirming that the problem I was having is
most likely do bugs in the library itself.  I was hoping Xml-light would be
able to do the job because it's a library you can grok and start using right
away, whereas PXP will require a more significant investment of time.  Btw,
Gerd, the problem I have is fairly boilerplate:  "here's a DTD and here's a
string with an XML document -- is the document valid according to the DTD?",
perhaps you can add it as an example to the documentation?

Well, off to read the PXP manual!

Thanks for your time,
Dario Teixeira