# LibXML-Ruby 0.3.6 **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [February 23, 2006, 8:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130 "2006-02-23T20:35:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2006, 8:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/1 "2006-02-23T20:35:36Z")
LibXML-Ruby 0.3.6 is now available from Rubyforge. LibXML-Ruby is (as you may have guessed) a C-language Ruby binding to the Gnome LibXML2 library, supporting a wide range of XML technologies and offering very competitive performance across the board. You can obtain LibXML-Ruby via Rubygems: ``` gem install libxml-ruby ``` Or as standard tarball/zip packages: ``` http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=494&release_id=4388 ``` This release is essentially our ‘ground zero’ release after a recent effort to revive the sleeping LibXML-Ruby project with the help of original author Sean C… Although fixes for a number of bugs in the build and the code are included, no new functionality has yet been added. We are keen to gain feedback from the community, whether positive or negative, with a view to fixing the direction of the project. Our mailing list: ``` removed_email_address@domain.invalid ``` You can find (a bit) more information, and API documentation, at the project website on Rubyforge: ``` http://libxml.rubyforge.org/ ``` (Please note, _not_ xml-tools as was previously the case). For more information on the XML technologies supported by LibXML2, or for help obtaining or installing it, please see: ``` http://xmlsoft.org/ ``` ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2006, 8:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/2 "2006-02-23T20:48:39Z")
Will this library be renamed LibXML2-Ruby soon? The current name is slightly misleading. ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/3 "2006-02-23T21:02:51Z")
On Fri, 2006-02-24 at 04:48 +0900, Mr. Big wrote: > Will this library be renamed LibXML2-Ruby soon? The current name is > slightly misleading. Yes, I have to agree. But the project was previously under the name ‘libxml-ruby’ and we wanted to get a release out quickly, with minimal changes (beyond fixing things). This release should be completely compatible with existing code, including the “require ‘xml/libxml’” part. We’re hoping to get feedback from this release and work that into the next minor release, 0.4.0. Maybe between now and then we can slip a name change in there … ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2006, 9:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/4 "2006-02-23T21:14:39Z")
Ross B. wrote: > On Fri, 2006-02-24 at 04:48 +0900, Mr. Big wrote: > > > Will this library be renamed LibXML2-Ruby soon? The current name is > > slightly misleading. > > Yes, I have to agree. But the project was previously under the name > ‘libxml-ruby’ and we wanted to get a release out quickly, with minimal > changes (beyond fixing things). This release should be completely > compatible with existing code, including the “require ‘xml/libxml’” > part. > > We’re hoping to get feedback from this release and work that into the > next minor release, 0.4.0. Maybe between now and then we can slip a name > change in there … Good work! I prefer the API (and, obviously, the speed) over that of REXML. I do concur about the naming. Either make it libxml2-ruby or bump the version to 2.3.6 🙂 Thanks! E ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 1:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/5 "2006-02-24T13:00:52Z")
Strange, because ZLib _is_ included in the one-click installer. Curt ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2006, 10:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/6 "2006-02-23T22:31:25Z")
Tried to install it under windows and it failed because I didn’t have Zlib. This is with the ruby one click installer. Thanks ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 2:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/7 "2006-02-24T14:05:57Z")
On Fri, 2006-02-24 at 21:00 +0900, Curt H. wrote: ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 4:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/8 "2006-02-24T16:55:53Z")
On 2/24/06, Ross B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > (Wrong button, excuse the noise) > > Does it include the zlib.h header ? > > If so, OP could maybe try passing --with-zlib= option to a manual > install, but I’m not sure yet how it could work with gems… No, it just includes the executable. The release notes show the exact version, so you could download the source and extract the header. Curt ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 2:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/9 "2006-02-24T14:12:06Z")
On Fri, 2006-02-24 at 22:05 +0900, Ross B. wrote: > On Fri, 2006-02-24 at 21:00 +0900, Curt H. wrote: > > > On 2/23/06, Dominic S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > > > Tried to install it under windows and it failed because I didn’t have Zlib. > > > This is with the ruby one click installer. > > > Strange, because ZLib _is_ included in the one-click installer. > > > > Curt (Wrong button, excuse the noise) Does it include the zlib.h header ? If so, OP could maybe try passing --with-zlib= option to a manual install, but I’m not sure yet how it could work with gems… ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 5:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/10 "2006-02-24T17:33:19Z")
On Thursday 23 February 2006 2:32 pm, Ross B. wrote: > LibXML-Ruby 0.3.6 is now available from Rubyforge. LibXML-Ruby is (as > you may have guessed) a C-language Ruby binding to the Gnome LibXML2 > library, supporting a wide range of XML technologies and offering > very competitive performance across the board. Wow, this is a pretty incredible speedup! \ Input doc: keith@devel /work/frame/templates/main $ du -h main.chap.mx && wc main.chap.mx 2.2M main.chap.mx 21063 75272 2287526 main.chap.mx LibXML keith@devel /work/frame/templates/main $ time ruby -e “require ‘rubygems’; require ‘xml/libxml’; d = XML::Document.file(‘main.chap.mx’); d.find(’//String’).each{|n| puts n}” | wc 2090 9200 99275 real 0m0.785s user 0m0.728s sys 0m0.068s REXML: time ruby -e “require ‘rexml/document’; d = REXML::Document.new(File.new(‘main.chap.mx’)); REXML::XPath.each(d, ‘//String/’){|n| puts n.text}” | wc 2090 9200 60422 real 1m41.021s user 1m40.710s sys 0m0.308s Computer: 2 x PIII 650Mhz, 1GB RAM \ Nice work, folks. Keith ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 5:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/11 "2006-02-24T17:39:24Z")
Great! Could you please explain to us uninitiated the advantages (and disadvantages) of this over REXML? ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 6:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/12 "2006-02-24T18:36:32Z")
This sounds great. Thanks for producing these bindings. I am really glad to see this as it adds a simple interface for validating against an xml schema. Sadly I’ll eventualy need to get this compiled on windows, which I’ve never had much luck with 😉 .adam ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 8:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/13 "2006-02-24T20:08:41Z")
Ross B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > You can obtain LibXML-Ruby via Rubygems: > > ``` > gem install libxml-ruby > > ``` > > Or as standard tarball/zip packages: > > ``` > http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=494&release_id=4388 > > ``` looks really great, thanks for your work. i plane to use this binding within a MacOS X application. for me, including “libxml-ruby” is easy using stadalonift.rb from Jonathan Paisley, but i wonder on how to embed also the gnome libxml2 correctly bind to ruby… do you have some advices for that point ? ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2006, 4:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/14 "2006-02-25T04:15:13Z")
On Sat, 2006-02-25 at 01:38 +0900, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote: > Great! > > Could you please explain to us uninitiated the advantages (and > disadvantages) of this over REXML? I’ll try, but I have to admit I’ve never made serious use of REXML. I think the main difference really is that REXML is implemented in Ruby, whereas LibXML-Ruby is a C-language binding to a native library (that being, somewhat confusingly I must admit, the Gnome LibXML2 library). The main upshot of this is speed, and supported functionality - most (though not all) operations are faster with LibXML-Ruby than with REXML, mainly due to the native implementation, but partly because LibXML2 is itself pretty quick too. Thanks to it’s place in Gnome, LibXML2 also allows us to support a range of XML-related technologies that REXML doesn’t (as far as I’m aware?), including stable support for namespaces, XPointer, XInclude, catalogues, and more. Obviously full support is present for XPath, too (as in REXML I think). Possibly more important than any of that depending on your usage is validation: LibXML2 (and by extension LibXML-Ruby) fully support DTD validation, and has some support for XML Schema (not exactly sure on the current status of this). I won’t get into any ‘our library is better than your library’ discussions, because it’s not about that - the two are different animals that happen to share a hunting ground. The reasons for choosing one or the other come down to a combination of your requirements in terms of performance, what you need to do with your XML, whether or not you can compile LibXML2 and extensions on your target platform, and your personal preference in terms of which API you prefer. ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2006, 4:30am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/15 "2006-02-25T04:30:22Z")
On Sat, 2006-02-25 at 04:08 +0900, Une bévue wrote: > looks really great, thanks for your work. > > i plane to use this binding within a MacOS X application. > > for me, including “libxml-ruby” is easy using stadalonift.rb from > Jonathan Paisley, but i wonder on how to embed also the gnome libxml2 > correctly bind to ruby… > > do you have some advices for that point ? I’m afraid I can’t be much help there, I’ve no experience with OSX. I’ve seen standaloneify.rb but it lost me at “Takes a built RubyCocoa app bundle (as produced by the Xcode/ProjectBuilder template)…” ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2006, 9:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/16 "2006-02-25T09:44:18Z")
Ross B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I’m afraid I can’t be much help there, I’ve no experience with OSX. I’ve > seen standaloneify.rb but it lost me at “Takes a built RubyCocoa app > bundle (as produced by the Xcode/ProjectBuilder template)…” even not general advices ? what i think about that : make a try apart (in my HOME) with a fresh ruby, libxml2 and RubyLibxml. what i have to know is the process of binding that’s to say how your RubyLibxml find ruby and libxml2, probably this is done at the config step. then, i can catch the right parameters to get that binding into my fresh HOME Ruby and Libxml2 ? anyway i’ll ask on the RubyCocoa-talk list… ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2006, 3:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/17 "2006-02-25T15:56:05Z")
On Sat, 2006-02-25 at 17:43 +0900, Une bévue wrote: > make a try apart (in my HOME) > > with a fresh ruby, libxml2 and RubyLibxml. > > what i have to know is the process of binding that’s to say how your > RubyLibxml find ruby and libxml2, probably this is done at the config > step. Yes, it’s handled by ext/xml/extconf.rb . The Ruby version you build against is determined by the Ruby you run that script with. You can pass in the path to libxml in usual extconf style (–with-xml2-dir or –with-xml2-lib and --with-xml2-include). You’ll need to manually run the extconf (rather than relying on the Rakefile) to pass in those options and then run make as usual. ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2006, 8:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/18 "2006-02-25T20:09:59Z")
Ross B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Yes, it’s handled by ext/xml/extconf.rb . The Ruby version you build > against is determined by the Ruby you run that script with. You can pass > in the path to libxml in usual extconf style (–with-xml2-dir or > –with-xml2-lib and --with-xml2-include). > > You’ll need to manually run the extconf (rather than relying on the > Rakefile) to pass in those options and then run make as usual. OK, fine i’ll give it a try ASAP and let you know. ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2006, 4:21am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/19 "2006-02-25T04:21:17Z")
On Sat, 2006-02-25 at 02:33 +0900, Adam S. wrote: > This sounds great. Thanks for producing these bindings. I am really > glad to see this as it adds a simple interface for validating against > an xml schema. > > Sadly I’ll eventualy need to get this compiled on windows, which I’ve > never had much luck with 😉 Hopefully if you have the required libraries it will work, but I have to admit to not knowing much about compiling stuff on Windows… One of the things we’re interested in with this release is getting a handle on cross-platform issues. There have been long-standing OSX issues which are hopefully now fixed, but with limited hardware/software for testing it’s really important that we get reports of any problems from OSX and Windows users. ---
**Author:** ![ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ross\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ross_b)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2006, 11:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130/20 "2006-02-25T23:51:12Z")
This is great news - does the library include bindings for libxslt as well? [Next page](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/libxml-ruby-0-3-6/54130.md?page=2)