[XML-SIG] Re: [XML-checkins]CVS: xml/xml/dom expatbuilder.py,1.5,1.6

[Fred L. Drake, Jr.]

[Regarding the return of -1/0/1 as the value of the standalone field
 for the XmlDeclHandler from pyexpat...]

Martin v. Loewis writes:
 > I personally find this change quite ugly. Wouldn't it be much better
 > if pyexpat would use True and False in the standalone flag?

I agree; I'd love it to be None/False/True, but that's an API change,
and enough people use the pyexpat interface directly that that's a bad
idea at this point.  If a new interface to Expat ever emerges, it
should definately use a more "Pythonic" value.

 > Also, what is the purpose of initializing _standalone to -1?

-1 indicates that it was never initialized, so we can store None for
no-value, rather than False.  The truth-behavior works well, and it
can be tested for if needed.


  -Fred

-- 
Fred L. Drake, Jr.  <fdrake at acm.org>
PythonLabs at Zope Corporation