Re: [office] Single XML file

[Svante Schubert <svante.schubert@gmail.com>]

AFAIK the single file format was once introduced to provide easy XSLT support.

Unfortunately it was not taking serious as the round trip of ODF documents between single file format and ZIP is broken.
A zipped ODF saved as single file and loaded as saved as zip back is not guaranteed to produce the same info set of the original zip.
For instance, embedded files other than images get usually lost, in addition the single file gets invalid when multiple similar XML IDs exist in the files and even similar named automatic styles from content and styles XML will cause a problem.

IMHO we should either specifying the single format in a way that it is 100% compatible, e.g.
a) like a specified generic mechanism to map any file into the single stream
b) like a specified mapping of IDs (XML, style names) of various files (e.g. with the file path+name as prefix) into the single file
or dropping the whole thing.

I would tend to drop it, as I see only burden to the implementor, even the ODF Toolkit does not implement it. But I can not see the overall benefit for the ODF format.
There is no problem in using such a file format internally, if it suits the needs (e.g. WebODF), but IMHO it is just a bad idea to specify it as an ODF document exchange option.

PS: Even in XSLT it gets annoying as all images will be BASE64 encoded, parsed by the XML parser, causing time inefficiency and often out-of-memory exception, instead references inside the ZIP could be resolved using SAX EntityResolver oder URIResolver.

Svante

On 29.08.2012 20:23, robert_weir@us.ibm.com wrote:

I thought WebODF used the single file XML representation.  Jos would be able to confirm.

-Rob

<office@lists.oasis-open.org> wrote on 08/29/2012 11:47:31 AM:

> From: Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>
> To: office@lists.oasis-open.org,
> Date: 08/29/2012 11:49 AM
> Subject: [office] Single XML file
> Sent by: <office@lists.oasis-open.org>
>
> Greetings!
>
> Since there are almost three weeks until the next TC meeting, I am
> hopeful that everyone can decide if the single XML file format option is
> something they really need? See:
> https://tools.oasis-open.org/issues/browse/OFFICE-3781
>
> It is probably doable, but I don't see the value-add from keeping it as
> an option.
>
> Thoughts/suggestions?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Hope everyone is having a great day!
>
> Patrick
>
> --
> Patrick Durusau
> patrick@durusau.net
> Former Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
> Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
> Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
> Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)
>
> Another Word For It (blog): http://tm.durusau.net
> Homepage: http://www.durusau.net
> Twitter: patrickDurusau
>
>
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