[antlr-interest] antlr suitable for xml languages? (like bpel and are there existing grammaires)

Martin Probst mail at martin-probst.com
Thu Dec 15 01:08:33 PST 2005


> Quite honestly I am surprised Java libraries don't take more advantage
> of its introspection abilities. 

Well, because reflection at least used to be really slow (it's better
now afaik) and the Java way is static typing, not dynamic fiddling at
runtime. These dynamic projects might be nice for the quick small
project, but for really big stuff static typing and (more or less)
rigorous structures are a pro.

> A library like this allows you to basically define the DTD in code as
> well as giving you a set of "strongly typed" classes that you can use to
> manipulate the XML (all with one declaration of course).

Well, you can do that at compile time with tools like XML Beans in Java.
Why would you want to do something like that at runtime?

> Do such libraries exist in Java? I am not sure.

Well, mentioned XML beans and such, there are afaik dozens of XML
binding libraries, from expensive commercial grade to open source.

Martin



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