Serialisation of PXP DTDs

[Dario Teixeira <darioteixeira@yahoo.com>]

Hi,

I am using PXP to parse the MathML2 DTD.  This is a fairly large DTD,
which even on a fast machine takes several seconds to parse.  I am
therefore looking at ways to serialise a parsed DTD, in a such a way
that it can be reused by other processes.

Does PXP already offer primitives for (un)serialising DTDs?  (I couldn't
find any).  Note that using Marshal is out of the question, because DTDs
are stored as objects, and we all know that objects cannot be serialised
across process boundaries.  But are there alternative solutions I'm
overlooking?

On a more general but related note, I think we should start an OSP
discussion about standardising serialisation methods.  The rationale
should be obvious.  Myself, I am partial to Sexplib, since it is
reasonably fast, very simple to use, human-readable, and future-proof.
I reckon that bin-prot could also be considered, as long as at some
point the binary format is "set in stone", or at least deserialisers
are always backwards compatible.  Any other opinions?

Thanks for your time!
Cheers,
Dario Teixeira