XML Processing with Python

9.11. A Standardized Tree-Driven XML Processing Model

Tree-based processing of XML (and indeed HTML) is such a useful thing that the W3C has put forward a standard API for it known as the DOM—Document Object Model. The DOM is the subject of chapter 11.

The DOM has the advantage that it is becoming familiar to more and more programmers. However, like any language-independent API, it is a compromise. PYX tree creation and navigation is very Python specific but is more natural to program in Python than the DOM. There is no reason why the DOM should not be supported as a layer on top of Pyxie, thus providing Python programmers with the option to work at the standardized API level or at the Python-specific level.