[RESOLVED] Parse xml without msxml library

[Chris001]

Hi, does anybody have a module or class that replaces the msxml library? I need to read XML files, but in this case I don't want to use extra dependencies (only the vb run-time files).

I've searched around, but can't find a good replacement.

[jggtz]

http://www.freevbcode.com/ShowCode.asp?ID=1455

[dilettante]

The only versions you can redistribute intact are 4.0 and 6.0, and the base functionality is pretty much the same from 2.0 onward. Prior to 4.0 XDR schemas were used, afterward it uses XSD schemas. Along the way some XPath changes were made, etc.

You can't distribute msxml*.dll by itself anyway. See Microsoft Core XML Services (MSXML) 6.0 (the 32-bit redist is a 1.5MB MSI package).

For "dummy" XML parsing though you'll probably never notice a difference. Any machine with MDAC 2.5 or later will have a usable version. Target 3.0 for best results on every supported Windows platform (Win2KSP4 is the oldest supported version of Windows).

Here's more:

Using the right version of MSXML in Internet Explorer

MSXML 3.0 is our preferred “fallback” - It is installed on every OS from a fully patched Win2k SP4 installation on up, so it requires “zero-deployment” and is serviced regularly with the OS.

There are no good alternatives because MSXML2 blew them all away years ago. The sample linked above is crap. No SAX support, can't handle text encodings, the list goes on. I gave up on it years ago (it dates to 2000) and wrote my own, and have long abandoned that too.

[Chris001]

@jggtz

Thanks. I tried that example, but it doesn't parse the XML correctly. It contains quite a few bugs.


@dilettante

Thanks for the information. I'll use MSXML 3.0.