How to access byte-offset of XML node with Gnome C Parser of libxml2 ?

Hi,
Could anyone please suggest us how we can keep track of
byte-offset
value of a XML-node during parsing of a XML file with Gnome
C parser ?

Presently the structure 'xmlParserNodeInfo' gives the
begin-line
number and end-line number. But I need to know the
byte-offset value
of the node w.r.t. to the start of the file. Please help.

Thanks in advance.
-sukomal

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------

Regards,

Sukomal Pal

Research Fellow,
Information Retrieval Lab,
CVPR Unit,
Indian Statistical Institute,
203, B.T.Road, Kolkata- 700 108.

Phone : 0091-94331 70664(m)
    0091-33-2575 2858(Lab)
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On Tue, Jul 18, 2006 at 11:34:23PM +0530, Sukomal Pal wrote:
> Hi,

  it would be nice if people stopped posting stuff twice to
the list !

> Could anyone please suggest us how we can keep track of
byte-offset
> value of a XML-node during parsing of a XML file with
Gnome C parser ?

  In general it's a wrong idea because it mixes two
unrelated logical
model. Tell me what the byte offset should be when you hit 
   - a caracter coming from a predefined entity
   - a character coming from an entity defined in the
internal subset
   - a character coming from an entity defined in the
external subset

 if you really are ready to see your sequence do something
like
   1000 1001 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 1008 1009 
and okay to cope with it then sure byte offset may make
sense !

> Presently the structure 'xmlParserNodeInfo' gives the
begin-line
> number and end-line number. But I need to know the
byte-offset value
> of the node w.r.t. to the start of the file. Please
help.

  In general it's a very wrong thing to do.
You can still try to look at xmlByteConsumed and
xmlTextReaderByteConsumed
functions from the API, but again, unless you really know
what you are doing
it's a very wrong thing to ask an XML parser. An index in a
file is a well
defined concept. Once you started parsing the model is
completely different.
I would say, forget about it, again unless you really really
understand
all trhe tricks a parser may play on you.

Daniel

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