mirror of
https://github.com/michaelrsweet/mxml.git
synced 2024-11-13 07:15:30 +00:00
196 lines
5.3 KiB
HTML
196 lines
5.3 KiB
HTML
<html>
|
|
<head>
|
|
<title>Mini-XML Programmers Manual, Version 2.7</title>
|
|
<meta name="copyright" content="Copyright 2003-2011">
|
|
<meta name="author" content="Michael R. Sweet">
|
|
<meta name="keywords" content="XML, C, C++, library">
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body>
|
|
|
|
<h1 align="right"><a name="INTRO"><img src="0.gif" align="right"
|
|
hspace="10" width="100" height="100" alt="0"></a>Introduction</h1>
|
|
|
|
<p>This programmers manual describes Mini-XML version 2.7, a small
|
|
XML parsing library that you can use to read and write XML data
|
|
files in your C and C++ applications.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Mini-XML was initially developed for the <a
|
|
href="http://gutenprint.sf.net/">Gutenprint</a> project to replace
|
|
the rather large and unwieldy <tt>libxml2</tt> library with
|
|
something substantially smaller and easier-to-use. It all began one
|
|
morning in June of 2003 when Robert posted the following sentence to
|
|
the developer's list:</p>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote><em>It's bad enough that we require libxml2, but rolling
|
|
our own XML parser is a bit more than we can handle.</em></blockquote>
|
|
|
|
<p>I then replied with:</p>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote><em>Given the limited scope of what you use in XML, it
|
|
should be trivial to code a mini-XML API in a few hundred lines of
|
|
code.</em></blockquote>
|
|
|
|
<p>I took my own challenge and coded furiously for two days to
|
|
produced the initial public release of Mini-XML, total lines of
|
|
code: 696. Robert promptly integrated Mini-XML into Gutenprint
|
|
and removed libxml2.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Thanks to lots of feedback and support from various
|
|
developers, Mini-XML has evolved since then to provide a more
|
|
complete XML implementation and now stands at a whopping 3,747
|
|
lines of code, compared to 103,893 lines of code for libxml2
|
|
version 2.6.9.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Aside from Gutenprint, Mini-XML is used for the
|
|
following projects/software applications:</p>
|
|
|
|
<ul>
|
|
|
|
<li><a href="http://www.cups.org/">CUPS</a></li>
|
|
|
|
<li><a
|
|
href="http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net">ZynAddSubFX</a></li>
|
|
|
|
</ul>
|
|
|
|
<p>Please email me (mxml @ easysw . com) if you would like your
|
|
project added or removed from this list, or if you have any
|
|
comments/quotes you would like me to publish about your
|
|
experiences with Mini-XML.</p>
|
|
|
|
<!-- NEED 1in -->
|
|
<h2>Organization of This Document</h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>This manual is organized into the following chapters and
|
|
appendices:</p>
|
|
|
|
<ul>
|
|
|
|
<li>Chapter 1, "<a href="#INSTALL">Building,
|
|
Installing, and Packaging Mini-XML</a>", provides
|
|
compilation, installation, and packaging instructions for
|
|
Mini-XML.</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>Chapter 2, "<a href="#BASICS">Getting
|
|
Started with Mini-XML</a>", shows how to use the
|
|
Mini-XML library in your programs.</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>Chapter 3, "<a href="#ADVANCED">More
|
|
Mini-XML Programming Techniques</a>", shows additional
|
|
ways to use the Mini-XML library.</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>Chapter 4, "<a href="#MXMLDOC">Using the
|
|
mxmldoc Utility</a>", describes how to use the
|
|
<tt>mxmldoc(1)</tt> program to generate software
|
|
documentation.</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>Appendix A, "<a href="#LICENSE">Mini-XML License</a>",
|
|
provides the terms and conditions for using and distributing
|
|
Mini-XML.</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>Appendix B, "<a href="#RELNOTES">Release Notes</a>",
|
|
lists the changes in each release of Mini-XML.</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>Appendix C, "<a href="#REFERENCE">Library
|
|
Reference</a>", contains a complete reference for
|
|
Mini-XML, generated by <tt>mxmldoc</tt>.</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>Appendix D, "<a href="#SCHEMA">XML Schema</a>", shows
|
|
the XML schema used for the XML files produced by
|
|
<tt>mxmldoc</tt>.</li>
|
|
|
|
</ul>
|
|
|
|
<!-- NEED 10 -->
|
|
<h2>Notation Conventions</h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>Various font and syntax conventions are used in this guide.
|
|
Examples and their meanings and uses are explained below:</p>
|
|
|
|
<dl>
|
|
|
|
<dt><code>mxmldoc</code><br>
|
|
<code>mxmldoc(1)</code></dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd>The names of commands; the first mention of a command
|
|
or function in a chapter is followed by a manual page
|
|
section number.<br><br></dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt><var>/var</var><br>
|
|
<var>/etc/hosts</var></dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd>File and directory names.<br><br></dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt><tt>Request ID is Printer-123</tt></dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd>Screen output.<br><br></dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt><kbd>lp -d printer filename ENTER</kbd></dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd>Literal user input; special keys like
|
|
<kbd>ENTER</kbd> are in ALL CAPS.<br><br></dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>12.3</dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd>Numbers in the text are written using the period (.)
|
|
to indicate the decimal point.<br><br></dd>
|
|
|
|
</dl>
|
|
|
|
<!-- NEED 10 -->
|
|
<h2>Abbreviations</h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>The following abbreviations are used throughout this
|
|
manual:</p>
|
|
|
|
<dl>
|
|
|
|
<dt>Gb</dt>
|
|
<dd>Gigabytes, or 1073741824 bytes<br><br></dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>kb</dt>
|
|
<dd>Kilobytes, or 1024 bytes<br><br></dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>Mb</dt>
|
|
<dd>Megabytes, or 1048576 bytes<br><br></dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>UTF-8, UTF-16</dt>
|
|
<dd>Unicode Transformation Format, 8-bit or 16-bit<br><br></dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>W3C</dt>
|
|
<dd>World Wide Web Consortium<br><br></dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>XML</dt>
|
|
<dd>Extensible Markup Language<br><br></dd>
|
|
|
|
</dl>
|
|
|
|
<!-- NEED 12 -->
|
|
<h2>Other References</h2>
|
|
|
|
<dl>
|
|
|
|
<dt>The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0, Addison-Wesley,
|
|
ISBN 0-321-18578-1</dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd>The definition of the Unicode character set which is
|
|
used for XML.<br><br></dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt><a
|
|
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204/">Extensible
|
|
Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Third Edition)</a></dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd>The XML specification from the World Wide Web
|
|
Consortium (W3C)<br><br></dd>
|
|
|
|
</dl>
|
|
|
|
<!-- NEED 6 -->
|
|
<h2>Legal Stuff</h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>The Mini-XML library is copyright 2003-2011 by Michael Sweet. License terms
|
|
are described in <a href="#LICENSE">Appendix A - Mini-XML License</a>.</p>
|
|
|
|
</body>
|
|
</html>
|