Re: HTMLSerializer deprecated - what is the replacement?

[Michael Glavassevich]

Simon Kitching <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 03/30/2004 11:53:06 PM:

> > On Wed, 2004-03-31 at 01:10, Michael Glavassevich wrote:
> > > On Tue, 30 Mar 2004, Simon Kitching wrote:
> > > So in order to serialize my dom object to HTML, I can either:
> > > (a) bundle the whole of Xalan with my app, or
> > > (b) require java1.4 (to get xslt serialization), or
> > > (c) use the DOM3 load/save API, which is not yet approved, or
> > > (d) use the deprecated HtmlSerializer?
> > >
> > > None of the above seems particularly appealing. I guess that (c) is
> > > meant to be the future solution to this issue, right?
> >
> > (c) would be a standard solution for serializing a DOM into XML once
> > DOM Level 3 Load and Save is finalized.
> >
>
> [snip]
>
> > LSSerializer is an XML serializer. It provides no method for
> > serializing a DOM to HTML. The only standard way I'm aware of for
> > serializing HTML is to use JAXP.
>
> By "JAXP", I presume you mean instantiating an "identity"
> javax.xml.transform.Transformer object, and executing its transform
> method with a StreamResult object as the target?

Yes, I meant using the identity transformer.
 
> If this is indeed the case, then could I please make an explicit request
> to undeprecate the org.apache.xml.serializer.HTMLSerializer class?

The deprecation of this class is meant to be a warning for new developers, so that they look for alternatives if they're able to use something else. Also, for those who care about interoperability it's an encouragement not to use this Xerces specific class. Undeprecating it will give people a false sense that we are still working on this code (fixing bugs, making performance fixes, adding new functionality). The plan is to share serialization code with Xalan; getting it into xml-commons where both projects can pick it up.

> I don't think I will be alone in being unhappy about being forced to
> distribute the whole of Xalan with my app, just in order to be able to
> serialize Document objects to HTML on pre-java-1.4 environments.

Potentially you could get this from xml-commons in the future, though we haven't hammered out the details.

> I would point out that over in jakarta-commons, we recently had a
> discussion on what JVMs we had to support, and the answer was that
> *lots* of people still need java1.2 support, with a reasonable number
> still stuck with 1.1. I have quite a few customers who are running
> java1.3 myself. Essentially deprecating a feature for which the only
> replacement is java1.4 or the whole Xalan lib seems a bit tough. And of
> course the jaxp transform package implementation in 1.4 (a rather buggy
> version of Xalan) wasn't that hot anyway.

You can still use HTMLSerializer. We just recommend you don't if you have a choice.

> What is the best way to raise this issue properly? I could raise a
> bugzilla entry, but am afraid it won't be noticed.
>
> Regards,
>
> Simon
>
>
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Michael Glavassevich
XML Parser Development
IBM Toronto Lab
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]