All of the negotiator's behavior is controlled by data dictionaries that may contain the following functions:

• start(parser,data) -- called to create the current element

• finish(parser,data) -- a function that's called when the current element is finished

• child(result) -- gets passed the return value from each child element's finish function, if that child had a finish function.

• text(text) -- a function that's passed any character data within the current element

• literal(text) -- a function that's passed any literal (non-character) data within the current element, such as comments, processing instructions, etc.

Negotiation data can be changed at any time by either the negotiator functions, or by any of the above functions.