Re: ***SPAM*** [xml-dev] Representing binary trees in XML … flat versus recursive

On Thu, 2019-07-04 at 13:45 +0000, Costello, Roger L. wrote:

> Are there other ways to represent binary trees in XML?

Many. But it's mostly in the details; stand-off markup (flat) and
directly nested are the two most common. Note that arbitrary graph
structures can't be descried as pure trees, so you need either a hybrid
approach or (simplest) the flat/standoff approach.
 
> Of the two ways to represent binary trees shown above, which way is
> easier to process with XSLT? Which way is easier to process with
> other programming languages?

It doesn't make much difference. The id/idref approach allows for
indexed access.

> If you have used the recursive approach, have you encountered
> problems with XML parsers failing on deeply nested elements?
Years ago, yes (with SGML too).

But tail recursion, where available, usually eliminates that.

Liam



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