parsing non-XML to DOM -- "XML without all the angle brackets"

Hello,


I have an idea that goes like this. XML has lots of advantages,
but human comprehensibility isn't one of them. It seems to me
that XML would be a lot more comprehensible if we just drop
the angle brackets and redundant stuff -- to have


    toptag nextlevel { stillmore bottom1 "hello" yetagain "world" }


as opposed to


    <toptag><nextlevel><stillmore><bottom1>hello</bottom1>
        <yetagain>world</yetagain></stillmore></nextlevel></toptag>


I would like to still use a DTD to state the grammar, and I'd
like to parse stuff into a DOM -- that's handy for programs
to work with, so let's keep it.


What is a good way to approach this problem?


For what it's worth, I've trotted this out over on comp.text.xml
and didn't get any helpful responses.


I've worked with XML a fair bit over the last couple of years,
and I took a compiler class in 1984, so that's my background on this.


Thanks for your comments --


Robert Dodier

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