XOM API for Processing XML with Java

["Bradley S. Huffman" <hip AT csa.cs.okstate.edu>]

Elliotte Rusty Harold writes:

> On a recent thread on xml-dev James Clark (who is always worth 
> listening to) wrote:
> 
>   If your infoset contains a carriage return, you have to output
>   it as a numeric character reference, otherwise line-end
>   normalization will turn it into a line-feed. Similarly, if
>   attribute values in the infoset contain line-feeds or tabs, they
>   need to be output as numeric character references, otherwise
>   attribute value normalization will turn them into spaces...When
>   I'm creating XML, some parts of what I am creating may well have
>   come from parsing an XML document.  That means if there's any
>   XML infoset that my program cannot serialize correctly, it's
>   potentially a bug.
> 
> 
> I don't think the XOM serializer bothers to escape such carriage 
> returns, line feeds, tabs and the like where Clark suggests it 
> should. Should it? Or should this at least be an option in the 
> Serializer? And if it is an option, should it be the default option? 
> Thoughts?

I also saved his e-mail for further cogitation. I coming to the conclusion
that since having a cr, lt, tab, etc. in a attribute value is a 
purposeful act, the sequence serialize -> unserialize should preserve 
all characters.  So I think XOM serializer (and JDOM's XMLOutputter) should
always escape.

Brad