SPUG: XML::Parser empty vs. "empty" tags

[Jason Lamport]

Yet another XML::Parser question.  Is there any way, using 
XML::Parser, to differentiate between these two constructs:

	<tag></tag>

and

	<tag />

?

Both generate Start and End events.  I would have thought that the 
former construction would also generate a Char event (with the String 
argument set to '', i.e. the empty string) but it doesn't.  In fact, 
I can't find *any* difference in the way XML::Parser processes the 
two different cases.

This is a problem for me because my XML application, like Perl 
itself, makes a distinction between empty strings and null (or undef) 
values.  It seems logical to me to make <tag></tag> refer to the 
empty string and to make <tag /> refer to an undefined value, but I 
can't do that if I have no way of differentiating between the two 
cases.

-jason

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