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List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: kword DTD (was "Koffice file format version numbers?")
From:       Samuel Penn <sam () bifrost ! demon ! co ! uk>
Date:       2000-05-25 16:43:50
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In message <20000525062955.B8453@mandrakesoft.mandrakesoft.com>
            David Faure <david@mandrakesoft.com> wrote:

> On Thu, May 25, 2000 at 02:15:15PM +0100, Shaheed Haque wrote:
> > BTW, I realise that if we could guarantee that all changes were upwards 
> > compatible, we might be able to carry on in some failsafe mode, but that 
> > will depend on things I cannot predict (and do not want to control!). For 
> > example, let us imagine that the FORMAT section was enhanced in a newer 
> > version of Kword - an older binary might simply be able to skip 
> > tags/attributes it does not recognise.
> 
> Exactly. That's the strength of XML (compared to binary formats).
> And that's the reason why I'm personnally not sure we need version
> numbers at all. I mean, having some doesn't hurt, sure, but I don't see
> any use for them in the code. If we even completely redesign the way something
> is modelled, then we simply use new tags and keep the support for reading
> the old ones (just like KoStore can still read old binary stores but not
> write them anymore). And if we just add tags or attributes, old code
> simply skips them.

Aren't XML parsers supposed to fail if they encounter something they
don't recognise? You'd have to provide a new DTD for the older app
to be able to parse the new document format.

-- 
Be seeing you,
Sam.

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