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XML for <SCRIPT> started off as an "experimental code doodle" from Micheal Houghton. It allowed read-only access to a DOM tree representing an XML string.

While looking for a JavaScript parser during the Summer of 2000, I ran across XML for <SCRIPT> and used it for a large web-based application that I was developing. During the development of that application, I was impressed with how useful the library actually was. My next web application was a custom XML-based content management system. Since the back end employed XML as its data source, it was an easy decision to use XML for <SCRIPT> on the client side as well.

After the successful implementation of the content management system, I decided to volunteer to maintain XML for <SCRIPT>. Michael was gracious enough to allow it, and I set forth to merge my DOM manipulation code into his tree and build a web site to support the project.

In early Summer 2001, I released XML for <SCRIPT> 1.0. Since then, thousands of people have downloaded the project. Many have emailed me with suggestions and compliments. I have exchanged greetings with people all over the world.

I've also received patches and code contributions. Scott Severtson created the SAX parser and test suite included with XML for <SCRIPT> version 2.0. He also created a new XML parser that will be the base for future enhancements to the project. Raymond Irving helped considerably by creating and documenting the SAX parser examples as well as coming up with the why-didn't-I-think-of-that-idea for the xmlPack functions. A great deal of thanks is also due to Jennifer Sims, who redesigned the website around XML for <SCRIPT> to make it look wonderful and considerably more professional than the one I originally crafted.

Thanks to everyone who's contributed so far!

What's in the future? Well, Scott's work on the SAX parser also resulted in a potentially more robust, standards complient and faster DOM implementation as well as some other goodies. Many people are trying to use XML for <SCRIPT> in off-line mode and are requesting some way to save XML data to the file system. Plans are in the works to create a Java Applet that can be signed so that XML data can be stored and retreived in a cross-platform manner. A volunteer in this area would be very much appreciated. Also, wouldn't it be cool if we could have an XSL/XSLT engine as well? As always, your ideas and suggestions (as well as contributions) are very welcome!

The following is a detailed version history for XML for <SCRIPT>

Version History
Version 0.1
Initial version
Version 0.2
Significant code changes - switched to a cleaner one-pass parser.
Version 0.21
Bug fix release. Resolves an issue with attributes named 'length', due to the Array/Object duality in JavaScript. Adds a new accessor method on XMLNode, getAttributeNames(), to return a list of attribute names (Direct access to the attributes array property is discouraged)
Version 0.22
Bug fix release. Fixes problems with the content of CDATA and comment sections, and addresses string processing issues.
Version 1.0
New maintainer (djoham@yahoo.com). Lots of new DOM manipulation functions. In addition, a new test suite has been added to the distribution as well as a new sample application, new documentation and a new web site design.
Version 1.1
Support for Konqueror 2.2 added (by rewriting the convert functions) and a new stripped down version of xml.js (tinyxml.js) added to the distribution to increase download speeds on slow connections.
Version 2.0
A SAX parser, test suite and sample application is added to the project as well as a simple objects for storing XML data in cookies and helping in the escaping out of XML into valid HTML. As a result, the .js files are renamed to more appropriately describe their function. In addition, a new web site design is introduced that makes the distribution look considerably more professional and easier to read.
Thanks

I would like to personally thank Michael Houghton <mike@idle.org>, the original author of XML for <SCRIPT>. Without his original work, this parser would never have come into being.

Feedback

If you have any comments, suggestions, modifications, complaints, etc., please contact me (David Joham) by email: djoham@yahoo.com. If you're reporting a bug, it would be useful if you could provide the smallest chunk of XML that demonstrates the problem.

Copyright

XML for <SCRIPT> is Copyright 2000, 2001, 2002 Michael Houghton and David Joham. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.