in reply to Tutorial Perl & XML

Why no mention of our friend Mr. XML::DOM? Do you still dislike him?

XML::DOM is the only Perl module I have ever used. Knowledge of the DOM is transferable to other languages and to other XML tools because DOM is an XML standard.

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Re: Re: Tutorial Perl & XML
by mirod (Canon) on Jun 06, 2001 at 02:34 UTC

    I do mention XML::DOM: Introduction to XML::DOM.

    I must say I really don't like it though. I don't think the DOM is the right level of interface for the kind of transformation people usually do with Perl. It is way too low-level to be used safelly. It was designed to be used in browsers, not for generic XML transformation. Typically a well-placed comment will break a DOM transformation written by somebody not too experienced with it. DOM level 2 has some additional features that make it safer, but the module implements DOM level 1. Plus the interface is extremely Java oriented... and ugly!

    As for the portability argument I don't buy it.Why should the availability of a painful way to process XML in Java force you to use something equally painful in Perl? I like Perl because of its compactness and DWIMness, the DOM is just the opposite.