Yeah, but with that heuristics, one could immediately close any open tag that doesn't have a corresponding opening tag (and hence promoting them to empty elements). Or, by the same token, simply remove openings tag that don't have a corresponding closing tag (eliminating the element). Or you keep a stack of elements (push on open; pop on close), and if you encounter a closing tag that doesn't belong to the element on top of your stack, keep popping and closing till you find a correct one (implicite closing elements, like HTML's P, LI and TD elements).

Any one could be right. Or wrong. Or right sometimes, and wrong at other times. You end up with a document that is "well-formed". It may be correct, but it may not. You don't know. If you leave the document unmodified, any parser will tell you it's incorrect. That might even be a better situation.

In reply to Re^3: Repair malformed XML by Anonymous Monk
in thread Repair malformed XML by spoulson

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