[jdom-interest] end-of-line character

[Kevin Regan]

> tools ranging from simple text editors like emacs to Unix utils like 
> cat to GUI FTP programs to custom Java software all have to be able 
> to read and write XML files without knowing squat about XML. \r\n is 
> the standard line terminator used in more network protocols than 
> anything else. Most network software that implements protocols that 
> require \r\n (HTTP for example) is fairly forgiving of non-standard 
> requests that use \n instead of \r\n but there's always something out 
> there that isn't and actually expects authors to adhere to the spec.
> 
> Furthermore, it is not acceptable for JDOM output to be platform 
> dependent. A simple program that creates a document in memory with no 
> user input or random characteristics and serializes it should produce 
> byte-for-byte identical output on Windows, the Mac, and Unix. It 
> should not change from platform to platform. This is important for 
> digital signatures, among other use cases.
> 

I see your point on some of these.  However, what about the
following 2:

1) Xml in the data of an HTTP request.  This is handled by setting
  an explicit size for the data.  So, the terminating character is
  not important.  Actually, this should be true of most protocols
  that an XML document will be sent over.  It is unlikely (except
  in a few cases) for the end-of-line information to be interpreted
  by the protocol.

2) Digital Signatures -- end-of-line markings will have no effect on
   digital signatures.  XML canonicalization expects the standard
   validating parser normalizations before the first step of
   canonicalization.

I tend to agree that it would be better to have a standard output.
I'm only a little hesitant because I know the garbage that windows
text editors and unix text editors will throw out when given the
wrong end-of-line sequence.

--Kevin