Xerces-C 1.4.0                                                     1 Feb 2001

This is the binary build of Xerces-C 1.4.0 for OS/2. This build was done using
IBM's Visual Age C++ 4.0. If you do not have VAC++ 4.0 but would like to play 
with the Xerces samples, the necessary VAC++ 4.0 runtimes are included in the 
bin\runtimes directory.

All of the samples are pre-built and included in the bin directory. The sample
source code (and VAC++ 4.0 projects to build them) are in the samples 
directory.

Documentation is not included. (Hey, the zipfile is big enough as it is!) You
will need to see the Apache XML site -- http://xml.apache.org -- for current
documentation. All of the source code is also available on the Apache XML
site. (The OS/2 build is part of the source tree. You don't need to apply any
patches to build with VAC++ 4.0.)

If you are totally new to XML, take the time to read some of the W3C's XML 
stuff at http://www.w3.org.

Installation
------------
Unzip the zipfile into its own directory. (I prefer to keep it in a 
\xerces\1.4.0 directory, but you can put it where ever you like.)

Copy the xerces-c.dll (and VAC++ runtimes, if you need them) to any directory 
on your LIBPATH. (Or add the bin directory to your LIBPATH in config.sys and 
reboot. Or, as a temporary measure, from a command line SET BEGINLIBPATH to 
the bin directory.)

Either run the sample programs from the bin directory, move them to a 
directory on the PATH, or add the bin directory to your PATH in config.sys 
(and reboot, of course). You will need to some XML files to run the programs 
against -- there's one or two in the samples\data directory.

If you want to want to use Xerces-C in your own projects, look at the project 
files used to build the samples. They're in samples\Projects\OS2\VACPP40.

If you want to rebuild the samples, edit basedir.icc and change the directory 
assigned to SRC_DIR to match your root directory. The bldsamples.cmd batch 
file will build all of the samples. If you're using Object Rexx, you can run 
genICC.cmd to recreate the project files.

Plans
-----
I have an untested build of Xerces-C using VAC++ 3.6. That build will probably
make it into Xerces 1.5.0. Meanwhile, if you're interested in that version,
let me know and I'll send it to you.

I'm currently undecided about porting to GCC.

I am working on a transcoder that uses the support built into OS/2 Warp 4 and 
above. (FP 10 and later for Warp 4.) That will enable support for every 
language/codepage that Warp supports, plus a few.

Bill Schindler <developer@bitranch.com>
1 Feb 2001
