[JDEV] Well-formed XML.

Thu Jan 21 14:23:42 CST 1999

Hi, I have another protocol related suggestion. I've been experimenting
with a Java client and have been using several of the major XML parsers
to test it out. Apparently, a well-formed XML document needs to have a
single root element. Much like the root <html></html> element in HTML. All of the parsers I've tried so far,
stopped parsing at the second <j> element. There are several ugly
workarounds but I think it would be much more conducive to our goals if
we could take any off the shelf XML parser and not have to modify it in
order to write a Jabber client. So, I propose that both the server and
client wrap all their messages in a root <jabber></jabber> element.
Attributes could be used to specify the client and protocol much like
the current <j type='connection'> element. Maybe something like this:

<jabber agent='Jabzilla v1.0' protocol='19990121'>
  <j type='login'><user>foo</user><pass>bar</pass></j>
  <!-- etc. -->
</jabber>

The end </jabber> element could be used to indicate that the server or
client is getting ready to close the connection. Comments? I'm in the
process of downloading Cygwin32 so that I can make the necessary changes
to the server to test it out.

Just out of curiosity, why are all the messages between client and
server wrapped in a <j type='foo'> element? Why not <login> or
<message>? If we used element names rather than attribute types to
distinguish the purpose of a message, we could create a DTD specifying
what elements are allowed to be nested in others. For example, <user>
and <pass> would only be allowed in a <login> element. I'm not proposing
that we validate the XML as it comes in from the server, but it could be
used as a specification. Much like EBNF is for more traditional
protocols. And who knows, maybe while implementing and debugging our
clients we could have it validate the XML as an aid to determine a
source of errors.

Bye,
Jason.