The STS XML Library was originally developed before Runtime Revolution came out with their own method of parsing/managing XML, the external DLL file called revXML.dll. As such, it is logical that there be some comparison between the two in order to make the proper decision as to which to use, or for the purposes of migrating from one to the other.

For that purpose, the comparison below is divided into two parts - the "product" itself (how it was built, what its strengths and weaknesses are) and then comparing the individual commands/functions/methods to see how they compare.

The table below summarizes the comparison of the two products:

Feature	STS XML Library	revXML.DLL
Written in	Transcript	C++
Supports reading XML data	Yes	Yes
Supports writing XML data	Yes (Standard only)	Yes
Supports DTDs	No	Yes
Supports SOAP	No	Yes
Can handle multiple XML documents	Yes	Yes
Can accept and parse badly formatted XML	Yes (optional)	Yes (optional)1
Modifiable by the end user	Yes (Standard only)	No
Can manipulate node types other than element and text nodes (comments, processing instructions, XML declarations)2	Yes	No
Maintains original whitespace in XML when retrieving the XML tree as text	Yes	No
Normalizes data node contents	Yes	No
Documentation	Comprehensive	Good
Includes sample XML	Yes	Yes
Requires additional file(s) to install	No	Yes

The XML Library, since it is written in Transcript is both modifiable (as long as you have the Standard version) and doesn't require any add-ons. However, since it is written in Transcript, it is not nearly as fast as the revXML.dll in parsing large XML documents. In fact, if you need to parse XML documents with thousands of nodes, the XML Library will most likely be too slow for your needs. It also doesn't support SOAP or DTDs, as the revXML.dll does; however the documentation for the revXML.dll (according to reports) is not as good as the docs you are reading now, and the XML Library does do a good job at attempting to keep the whitespace from the original document intact when manipulating the data so that if you choose to write that XML back to a file, it is in a more human-readable form³.

Also one thing to note is that for some reason, the revXML.dll does not normalize the contents of a node, so this node:

<info>This          is          a         bunch        of       data</info>

when retrieved with revXMLNodeContents returns:

This          is          a         bunch        of       data

whereas when the same data is retrieved with the XML Library's stsXML_GetNodeData, returns:

This is a bunch of data

Normalizing of data is the standard set forth by the W3C with the only exception being CDATA nodes, whose content is left alone. This may be a bug in the revXML.dll, but is worth noting here.

This table focuses on the XML Library, listing out all of its methods and comparing them against the revXML.dll to see if there are comparable matches:

STS XML Library Method	revXML.DLL Function/Command	Comments
Loading Methods
stsXML_LoadData	revCreateXMLTree
Document Management Methods
stsXML_CreateDocument	—	revXML.dll cannot create the necessary XML declaration
stsXML_DeleteDocument	revDeleteXMLTree
stsXML_GetDocuments	revXMLTrees
Data/Text Methods
stsXML_ChildrenToArray	—
stsXML_GetNodeData	revXMLNodeContents
stsXML_SetNodeData	revPutIntoXMLNode
Attribute Methods
stsXML_AttributesToArray	—
stsXML_CountAttributes	—	You can use revXMLAttributes, then count the result
stsXML_CreateAttribute	revSetXMLAttribute
stsXML_DeleteAttribute	—	The revXMLRemoveAttribute command is not documented and may not actually work (you can see it by getting the externalCommands from a stack that has the revXML.dll attached)
stsXML_GetAttribute	revXMLAttribute
stsXML_GetAttributes	revXMLAttributes
stsXML_HasAttribute	—	You can use revXMLAttributes, then check the result to see if it contains the attribute you're looking for
stsXML_SetAttribute	revSetXMLAttribute
Search Methods
stsXML_FindNodesByAttribute	revXMLMatchingNode
stsXML_FindNodesByData	—
Node Methods
stsXML_CreateNode	revAddXMLNode revInsertXMLNode	XML Library can create all different types of nodes (not just ELEM)
stsXML_DeleteNode	revDeleteXMLNode
stsXML_GetNodeXML	revXMLChildContents revXMLText	revXML.dll lets you specify depth; XML Library returns either the specified node, or all the children under the node specified
stsXML_GetNodeName	—	Not necessary in revXML.dll since it works with paths and you need to know the name of the element ahead of time; XML Library lets you use either paths or node IDs, so this is useful if using node IDs
stsXML_GetNodeType	—	revXML.dll does not work with any type other than ELEM
stsXML_GetRoot	revXMLRootNode
stsXML_IsEmptyElement	—	revXML.dll can't tell the difference between <tag/> and <tag></tag>
Parent/Child Methods
stsXML_AppendChild	revAddXMLNode	XML Library can create all different types of nodes (not just ELEM)
stsXML_CountChildren	revXMLNumberOfChildren
stsXML_CountNamedChildren	revXMLNumberOfChildren
stsXML_GetChildren	revXMLChildNames
stsXML_GetFirstChild	revXMLFirstChild
stsXML_GetNamedChildren	revXMLChildNames
stsXML_GetLastChild	—
stsXML_GetNextSibling	revXMLNextSibling
stsXML_GetParent	revXMLParent
stsXML_GetPreviousSibling	revXMLPreviousSibling
stsXML_HasChildren	—	Use revXMLChildNames, then return if the count = 0
Utility Methods
stsXML_clearCallback	n/a
stsXML_dump	n/a
stsXML_expand	revXMLText	XML Library maintains whitespace
stsXML_expandPaths	n/a
stsXML_getNodeID(s)	n/a
stsXML_getNodePath(s)	n/a
stsXML_isDocument	revXMLTree
stsXML_isNode	—
stsXML_isType	—	revXML.dll does not work with any types other than ELEM
stsXML_libVersion	n/a
stsXML_normalize	—	revXML.dll does not do any normalization of data
stsXML_replaceEntities	—
stsXML_reset	revDeleteAllXMLTrees
stsXML_setCallback	n/a
stsXML_validateNode	—