Comparison of layout engines (XML)

Last updated September 19, 2022

The following tables compare XML compatibility and support for a number of browser engines.

Explanation of tables

See comparison of browser engines for the full list.

Values

These indicate the level of support for the given item in each engine. By default, the most recent version of the engine is implied. However, a specific version number can be listed; when this indicates full support, it's the initial version of the engine fully supporting the item.

Legend
Value	Meaning
Yes	Fully supported
No	Has never been supported
Partial	Only some values are supported
Incorrect	Not implemented correctly in all cases
Experimental	May be incomplete or buggy
Nightly build	Currently in development; full support is expected
Depends	Only supported for the specified conditions
Dropped	No longer supported

Core technologies

A general overview of what core XML technologies are supported.

	MSHTML	Gecko	WebKit	KHTML	Presto	Prince	Antenna House
XML namespace ^{[spec 1]}	5.0	1.0	?	Yes	1.0	5.1	Yes
xml:id^{[spec 2]}	No	No^{[g 1]}	No	No	2.0	5.1	Yes
XML Events ^{[spec 3]}	No	1.8	?	?	1.0	?	No
XInclude ^{[spec 4]}	3.1	No^{[g 2]}	No	?	No	5.1	No
XML Fragment Interchange^{[spec 5]}	?	?	?	?	?	?	No
Associating CSS	<3.1^{[IE 5.0]}	1.0	419	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes

XSL technologies

A general overview of what XSL technologies are supported.

	MSHTML	Gecko	WebKit	KHTML	Presto	Prince	Antenna House
XSLT ^{[spec 6]}^{[spec 7]}	<3.1^{[IE 6.0]} ^{[note 1]}	1.0	314	No	Incorrect	?	Yes
XSL-FO ^{[spec 8]}	No	No^{[g 3]}	No		No	No	Yes
EXSLT ^{[spec 9]}	?	1.9	No^{[w 1]}		Partial	?	Depends^{[a 1]}

Linking technologies

A general overview of what XML linking technologies are supported.

	MSHTML	Gecko	WebKit	KHTML	Presto	Prince	Antenna House
XLink ^{[spec 10]}	5.0	Partial^{[note 2]}	No^{[w 2]}	No	Partial	Partial^{[note 3]}	Partial^{[a 2]}
XML Base ^{[spec 11]}	No	1.0	No^{[w 3]}	Yes	Yes	6.0	Yes^{[a 3]}
XPointer ^{[spec 12]}	?	Partial	No^{[w 4]}	No	No	?	No

Query technologies

A general overview of what XML query technologies are supported.

	MSHTML	Gecko	WebKit	KHTML	Presto	Prince	Antenna House
XPath 1.0 ^{[spec 13]}	Yes	1.8	Yes	4.8	2.0	?	Depends^{[a 1]}
XPath 2.0 ^{[spec 14]}	No	No^{[g 6]}	?	?	?	?	Depends^{[a 1]}
XPath 3.0 ^{[spec 15]}	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
XPath 3.1 ^{[spec 16]}	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
XQuery ^{[spec 17]}	?	No^{[g 7]}	No^{[w 5]}	?	No	?	No

Schema technologies

A general overview of what XML schema technologies are supported.

	MSHTML	Gecko	WebKit	KHTML	Presto	Prince	Antenna House
DTD	No	Partial^{[note 4]}	No^{[w 6]}	No	Partial^{[note 5]}	3.0	Depends^{[a 1]}
XML Schema ^{[spec 18]}^{[spec 19]}^{[spec 20]}^{[spec 21]}	?	Partial	No	?	No	?	Depends^{[a 1]}
RELAX NG ^{[spec 22]}	?	No^{[g 9]}	No	?	No	?	Depends^{[a 1]}

Security technologies

A general overview of what XML security technologies are supported.

	MSHTML	Gecko	WebKit	KHTML	Presto	Prince	Antenna House
XML Signature ^{[spec 23]}	No	No^{[g 10]}	No	No	No	No	No
XML Encryption ^{[spec 24]}		No
XML Key Management^{[spec 25]}		No

Notes

↑ MSHTML relies on the MSXML library to implement XML processing. MSXML3 and MSXML4 implement XSLT 1.0, while MSXML2 implements the December 1998 XSL Working Draft, which predates XSLT 1.0 and is not fully compatible with it. Further complicating matters is that the MSXML libraries can coexist, but only one of them will be used by MSHTML, depending on a setting in the Windows Registry. Prior to the release of Internet Explorer 6, MSXML2 was the default XML library for MSHTML, but MSXML3 or MSXML4 could be installed separately and then registered as the default if desired. Regardless of which version was the default, any version, if installed, could be invoked directly by Microsoft-specific scripting code in the document being rendered by MSHTML.
↑ Gecko, as of version 1.8, only supports simple XLinks, and only for SVG and MathML.^{[g 4]}^{[g 5]}
↑ Prince supports only simple XLinks.^{[r 1]}
↑ Only inline DTDs are allowed, external DTDs are ignored.^{[g 8]}
↑ Prior to version 2.0, only inline DTDs are allowed; external DTDs are ignored. In 2.0, it is possible to load external DTDs, but not cross-domain.

Related Research Articles

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References

Specifications

Gecko references

"Mozilla Developer Documentation". Mozilla XML support. Retrieved May 1, 2005.

WebKit references

↑ Bug 4079 - Support EXSLT with libexslt, WebKit
↑ Bug 10556 - Support XLink in any XML document, WebKit
↑ Bug 17423 - ER: Add support for xml:base, WebKit
↑ Bug 17491 - ER: Implement XPointer Support, WebKit
↑ Bug 16536 - Add XQuery support, WebKit
↑ Bug 3300 - XSLT parser ignores document DTD, WebKit

"WebKit Standards Support Targets". Webkit XML support. Retrieved February 3, 2010.

Presto references

"Opera Documentation". Web specifications supported in Opera. Archived from the original on June 4, 2012. Retrieved May 1, 2005.

Prince references

↑ Prince: XML Input, YesLogic

"Prince XML Developer Documentation". Prince XML support. Retrieved May 1, 2005.

Antenna House references

"AH Formatter V6.5 Online Manual". Antenna House support. Retrieved January 26, 2018.

Other references

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[10] MSHTML relies on the MSXML library to implement XML processing. MSXML3 and MSXML4 implement XSLT 1.0, while MSXML2 implements the December 1998 XSL Working Draft, which predates XSLT 1.0 and is not fully compatible with it. Further complicating matters is that the MSXML libraries can coexist, but only one of them will be used by MSHTML, depending on a setting in the Windows Registry. Prior to the release of Internet Explorer 6, MSXML2 was the default XML library for MSHTML, but MSXML3 or MSXML4 could be installed separately and then registered as the default if desired. Regardless of which version was the default, any version, if installed, could be invoked directly by Microsoft-specific scripting code in the document being rendered by MSHTML.

[19] Gecko, as of version 1.8, only supports simple XLinks, and only for SVG and MathML.^{[g 4]}^{[g 5]}

[22] Prince supports only simple XLinks.^{[r 1]}

[38] Only inline DTDs are allowed, external DTDs are ignored.^{[g 8]}

[40] Prior to version 2.0, only inline DTDs are allowed; external DTDs are ignored. In 2.0, it is possible to load external DTDs, but not cross-domain.

[1] Namespaces in XML 1.0 (Third Edition), W3C

[2] xml:id Version 1.0, W3C

[4] XML Events, W3C

[5] XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.0 (Second Edition), W3C

[7] XML Fragment Interchange, W3C

[8] XSL Transformations (XSLT), W3C

[9] XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.0, W3C

[11] Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) Version 1.1, W3C

[13] EXSLT

[16] XML Linking Language (XLink) Version 1.1, W3C

[24] XML Base (Second Edition), W3C

[27] XPointer Framework, W3C

[29] XML Path Language (XPath), W3C

[30] XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0, W3C

[32] XML Path Language (XPath) 3.0, W3C

[33] XML Path Language (XPath) 3.1, W3C

[34] XQuery and XPath Full Text 1.0, W3C

[41] XML Schema Part 1: Structures Second Edition, W3C

[42] XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes Second Edition, W3C

[43] W3C XML Schema Definition Language (XSD) 1.1 Part 1: Structures, W3C

[44] W3C XML Schema Definition Language (XSD) 1.1 Part 2: Datatypes, W3C

[45] RELAX NG home page

[47] XML Signature Syntax and Processing (Second Edition), W3C

[49] XML Encryption Syntax and Processing, W3C

[50] XML Key Management Specification (XKMS), W3C

[3] Bug 275196 - xml:id support, Mozilla

[6] Bug 201754 - XML Inclusions (XInclude), Mozilla

[12] Bug 95959 - Mozilla does not support XSL:FO or XML Formatting Objects, Mozilla

[17] XLink - MDC, Mozilla

[18] SVG in Firefox, Mozilla

[31] Bug 396966 - Xpath 2.0, Mozilla

[35] Bug 385995 - Request to add XQuery, Mozilla

[37] Bug 22942 - (entities) Load external DTDs (entity/entities) (local and remote) if a pref is set, Mozilla

[46] Bug 227459 - Implement validating XML parser (validate with RELAX NG), Mozilla

[48] Bug 125528 - Implement xml signature support, Mozilla

[14] Bug 4079 - Support EXSLT with libexslt, WebKit

[20] Bug 10556 - Support XLink in any XML document, WebKit

[25] Bug 17423 - ER: Add support for xml:base, WebKit

[28] Bug 17491 - ER: Implement XPointer Support, WebKit

[36] Bug 16536 - Add XQuery support, WebKit

[39] Bug 3300 - XSLT parser ignores document DTD, WebKit

[21] Prince: XML Input, YesLogic

[ah-xslt-15] 1 2 3 4 5 6 "AH Formatter V6.6 - Overview".

[23] "AH Formatter V6.6 - XSL/CSS Extensions".

[26] "AH Formatter V6.6 - XSL/CSS Extensions".

[spec 1]

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