Dr. Strangelove (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love XML)

[Derek Bump]

Bill Marriott wrote:
> I can say that once you figure out what two or three commands you need to 
> use to parse an XML file, it's way faster than using chunk expressions or 
> some other method.

This is really what I ended up doing.  I created my own "ripText" 
function which pulls the data I need, via offsets, provided it follows 
the XML format's rules.  If it doesn't, I throw an error.  And since 
it's standardized (it's the OpenSearch format), any errors generated are 
the result of the XML author and not my program.

I tried Sarah's stack and was amazed as to how nicely it parses the XML, 
but I found that incorporating all of the RevXML commands into what 
should be a simple function was all too complicated (not Sarah's stack, 
but RevXML itself).

There's a learning curve, and you're right, XML can get quite 
complicated depending on who's writing it.  I mean look at RSS... 
depending on the version: you could be there for hours. ;)

Thanks to everyone that helped me out.  I really appreciate it!


Derek Bump
Dreamscape Software
http://www.dreamscapesoftware.com/