XMLSerializer.setNamespaces(boolean) deprecated?

[davidmichaelkarr]

I have some code that is using "apache.xml.serialize.XMLSerializer"
(from WebLogic 8.1) to serialize DOM trees to an XML string. I
recently noticed it wasn't serializing namespace references. I
discovered the "setNamespaces(boolean)" method, which when passed
"true", when you serialize, it will serialize namespace references.
However, the javadoc for "setNamespaces(boolean)" says the following:

Deprecated. -- functionality could be removed
This methods turns on namespace fixup algorithm during DOM
serialization.

Could someone clarify the risk I might take using this method?
Assuming my code is stuck with WebLogic 8.1, is there something more
appropriate I should be using instead of XMLSerializer?

I would have asked this on the Xerces-J user list, but for some reason,
the Xerces-J user list appears to be defunct.

 

[davidmichaelkarr]

As a self-update to this issue, it appears that the copy of this class
in weblogic.jar has diverged from the class in Xerces. The source
history of the class in Xerces shows this method has never been
deprecated.