Xalan-C: new DOM and COM support

[Jon Smirl <jo...@mediaone.net>]

Is Xalan going to be building a new internal DOM anytime soon? If so, are
you interested in wrapping the DOM in the Mozilla IDL language so that it
can be scripted via XPCOM? Using XPCOM could even work both ways, allowing
scripting of the DOM, and provide a common binding to extension functions.

I'm currently building a system that embeds Xerces, Xalan, and Javascript
and I'm planning on using XPCOM to enable scripting of DOM trees from the
Javascript. I already have XPCOM working for my own components but I haven't
started with Xalan yet.

Mozilla has a COM implementation that runs on about 20 platforms and it's
not very hard to use. There are bindings for C++, Javascript and Perl. It
may even be possible to access Java via Liveconnect.
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xpcom/ Mozilla's COM is basically just like
Microsoft's except it runs everywhere.

Another interesting library is NSPR. It provides a portable library of basic
OS functions and threading across a lot platforms.
http://www.mozilla.org/docs/refList/refNSPR/

Both of these subsystem can be used standalone without the browser. Here's
an example of the libraries needed:

portable runtime
   NSPR4    DLL       143,360  07-11-00  4:50p nspr4.dll
   PLDS4    DLL        24,576  07-05-00 12:31a plds4.dll
   PLC4     DLL        28,672  07-05-00 12:31a plc4.dll
registry support
   MOZREG   DLL        36,864  07-11-00  4:51p mozreg.dll
   NSREG    DLL        57,344  07-11-00  4:51p nsreg.dll
COM implementation
   XPCOM    DLL       339,968  07-11-00  5:03p xpcom.dll
Javascript
   JS3250   DLL       286,720  07-11-00  5:04p js3250.dll

Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@mediaone.net