Re: Native XML

Andrew Dunstan <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net> writes:
> On 02/27/2011 10:45 AM, Tom Lane wrote:
>> Hmm, so this doesn't rely on libxml2 at all? Given the amount of pain
>> that library has caused us, getting out from under it seems like a
>> mighty attractive idea. How big a chunk of code do you think it'd be
>> by the time you complete the missing features?

> TBH, by the time it does all the things that libxml2, and libxslt, which
> depends on it, do for us, I think it will be huge. Do we really want to
> be maintaining a complete xpath and xslt implementation? I think that's
> likely to be a waste of our scarce resources.

Well, that's why I asked --- if it's going to be a huge chunk of code,
then I agree this is the wrong path to pursue. However, I do feel that
libxml pretty well sucks, so if we could replace it with a relatively
small amount of code, that might be the right thing to do.

> I use Postgres' XML functionality a lot, so I'm all in favor of
> improving it, but rolling our own doesn't seem like the best way to go.

> As for the pain, we seem to be over the worst of it, AFAICT.

No, because the xpath stuff is fundamentally broken, and nobody seems to
know how to make libxslt do what we actually need. See the open bugs
on the TODO list.

regards, tom lane