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This section lists some design decisions that have been made during the development of the library.

== The output streams do not accept a grammar during construction for validation ==
* validation can only occur once the document is complete
* failed validation usually throws an exception
* the xml::xofstream uses RAII to flush the document to file in its destructor
* a destructor must not throw
* anyway it's simple enough to re-open the output stream with an input stream for validation afterwards

== Document type definitions (DTD) cannot be specified with an external grammar ==
* see [http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/xerces-c-users/200605.mbox/%3Ce5jj27$vh$2@sea.gmane.org%3E this thread] for details

== The order of the attributes of an element cannot be controlled ==
* see [http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/xerces-c-users/200610.mbox/%3C454783CE.5050604@apache.org%3E this thread] for a (short) explanation