[XML-SIG] SAX Namespaces

[Paul Prescod]

"Fred L. Drake, Jr." wrote:
> 
> ...
>
>   When iterating over these unknown attributes, do you care that you
> see them in their original order?  If so, then a sequence is
> *required*, and anything else can be derived (somewhat annoying but
> possible).  If you don't care about the *original* order, .items() on
> a mapping is sufficient.

Original order is not a requirement. If it happens to work, it would be
a pleasent side effect.

My main deal is that I see most of my code converting PyExpat's list to
a dictionary (for SAX) and then converting the dictionary back to a list
(for iterating) and then (maybe) converting the list back to a pair of
dictionaries or a dictionary with different index and values.

list->dict->list->(dict,dict)

I proposed to reduce it to:

list->list->(dict,dict)

You proposed to make it 

list->FredsDataStructure

which I would use directly.

>   I think there are a couple of issues: is it reasonable to require
> the original order of atttributes, and, if not, what's the right
> dictionary key?  

No, that's not a requirement.

> (I'd say (URI,localname) in namespace mode, or
> rawname otherwise, with all other information available in the value.)

So is value always a tuple? Always the same size? Or is sometimes a
string and sometimes a tuple?

> xml.sax.AttributeList can provide all the appropriate query methods
> according to the SAX spec at that point

Above you seem to talk about Python's built-in dictionary type. Here you
seem to be talking about a new type or class.

-- 
 Paul Prescod - Not encumbered by corporate consensus
Pop stars come and pop stars go, but amid all this change there is one
eternal truth: Whenever Bob Dylan writes a song about a guy, the guy is
guilty as sin.
	- http://www.nj.com/page1/ledger/e2efc7.html