As XML-Dev discusses whether or not Public Identifiers are the right solution for a range of problems involving work with XML offline, ArborText announced the release of some Java classes for processing public identifiers.

Peter Murray-Rust raised the issue of parsers failing to process documents when disconnected from the Internet and (effectively) the DTD, along with a host of other parser behavior issues.

David Megginson brought up the EntityResolver feature of SAX and the external-parameter-entities feature of SAX2 as partial solutions to these problems.

After a few more rounds of discussion (noting, for example, John Cowan's XML Catalog), Norman Walsh announced that ArborText had released some Java classes for use with SAX parsers that "support the full semantics of OASIS Entity Management (TR9401)"

Registration is required to download the classes.