Why doesn't libxml2 support XPath 2.0?
- by Peter Krauss
Libxml2 is the faster, stable and most popular "open DOM engine"... And the "XML C parser and toolkit of Gnome".
The initial release of Libxml2 was September 1999, 13 years ago. XPath v1.0 was also released at 1999.
XPath v2.0 became a recommendation on January 2007, 6 years ago.
We can suppose that the Libxml2 community have time and people to develop a XPath2... So, what is the problem?
Why doesn't libxml2 (or a "libxml2 fork" or an "experimental lib"!) support XPath 2.0?
Some raised hypotheses to discussion at answers,
Because Libxml2 community (and Gnome community) dislikes and have no motivation to develop something to XPath2 or xQuery.
1.1. XPath2 needs (by mathematical proof) a very heavy parser, much slower, etc. that is not suitable to real-world Libxml2 applications.
1.2. Other "ideologic" dislikes/motivations.
Because it is written with C, and for XPath2 is better to develop with C++.
Because the above hypothesis of "Libxml2 community have time and people" is false.
Because XPath2 became stable in 2010 with its "Second Edition" release, and ~2.5 years is not (?) enough time.
