[zem107]

Hypothetically, if I were to write a full-fledged XML Parser(Search through large XML documents, take user input and search for that, but without a GUI), which language would work best? I've heard that functional programming is good for this job and since Erlang is good to me, it would work. But I also know that scripting languages are better at text processing, Python is my favorite language overall, so that would work out too. But the OO concept is good when making a application so C# or C++ might do the job also.

But this is all hypothetical and right now I'm probably not at a high enough level to make something like that. But I still do want to know what your guys opinions are.

[AdamSpeight2008]

It up to you if want to write a XML parser.
The current support for XML in the .net languages is very good, but vb.net (since vb2008) has the best support for XML of them because it has XML Literals embedded in it language grammar.

[Raynes]

Don't write an XML parser. Any language you use is likely to have a stable and mature XML parser somewhere already. Furthermore, VB.NET's xml literals will do fuck-all for parsing xml.

[dorknexus]

Quote

But I also know that scripting languages are better at text processing, Python is my favorite language overall, so that would work out too. But the OO concept is good when making a application so C# or C++ might do the job also.

Python is an OO language, among other things. Arguably, it's more OO than either C++ or C#.

[jon.kiparsky]

If you want to write an XML parser, write an XML parser. It's good practice, and it'll help you appreciate why it's better to use existing code, and to fix it where it's broken, than to start from scratch.

Any language that can read and write files and generate a tree structure can parse XML, so all of the ones you've mentioned will work.

[Curtis Rutland]

Raynes, on 26 October 2011 - 02:32 AM, said:

Furthermore, VB.NET's xml literals will do fuck-all for parsing xml.

That's a good point. They'll allow you to construct XML, or query XML that's already been parsed, but it won't do anything to actually take the XML from the text file and parse through it.