in reply to Re^2: XML cleanup - regex or ?
in thread XML cleanup - regex or ?

It's not an XML error to be missing a meow attribute on a cat element. Did you misrepresent the problem, or are you actually getting the error when you validate the XML against a schema? There's no reason you can't do that after removing the offending elements.

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Re^4: XML cleanup - regex or ?
by dHarry (Abbot) on Sep 22, 2010 at 07:21 UTC

    It's not an XML error to be missing a meow attribute on a cat element.

    That depends, if the attribute is mandatory it would be an error. Or do you mean something else by XML error? I'm thinking XSD here but I recall that with DTD's you can also specify attributes and make them "required".

    Cheers

    Harry

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      XML doesn't have any mandatory attributes on any elements. It doesn't even define any elements. As I suggested, you are talking of validation errors and not parsing errors. Those are two unrelated concepts. You need not validate the XML the parse it and manipulate it.

[reply]

        I don't disagree with you, I didn't get what you mean by "XML error" and I'm afraid I still don't get it. If you mean that with "missing attributes" you can still parse the file because it remains "well formed" I agree. A XML parser can parse any wellformed XML document, otherwise it would not be compliant. Missing attributes won't make a difference. In order for a XML document to be wellformed you need at least a root element though. What got me on the wrong foot is that the OP mentions he knows what attributes to expect, I sort of assumed he has schema(s) and/or DTD(s) and therefore a validating parser. Validation is optional of course.

[reply]

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