+CONFIG_EXPORT bool hasChild(xmlNodePtr theNode);
+
+/*!
+ * Returns named property for an id node as std::string and the parameters of the node.
+ */
+CONFIG_EXPORT bool getParametersInfo(xmlNodePtr theNode, std::string& outPropertyId,
+ std::list<std::string>& outValidatorParameters);
+
+/*!
+ \brief Convert the given parameter to the platform-specific library name.
+
+ The function appends platform-specific prefix (lib) and suffix (.dll/.so)
+ to the library file name.
+ For example, if \a str = "mylib", "libmylib.so" is returned for Linux and
+ mylib.dll for Windows.
+
+ \param str short library name
+ \return full library name
+ */
+CONFIG_EXPORT std::string library(const std::string& theLibName);
+
+/*!
+ * Returns named property for a given node as std::string.
+ */
+CONFIG_EXPORT std::string getProperty(xmlNodePtr theNode, const char* thePropName);
+
+/*!
+ * Checks if the given XML node has the given attribute,
+ * if yes - returns it's bool value, if no, or if the value can not
+ * be converted to bool - returns theDefault value.
+ * \param theAttributeName attribute to check
+ * \param theDefault default value on bad data
+ * \return the boolean result
+ */
+CONFIG_EXPORT bool getBooleanAttribute(xmlNodePtr theNode,
+ const char* theAttributeName,
+ bool theDefault);
+
+/*!
+ * Returns normalized (lower case) version of string.
+ * Should be used for case insensitive string matching.
+ */
+CONFIG_EXPORT std::string normalize(const char* theString);
+CONFIG_EXPORT std::string normalize(const std::string& theString);
+
+#endif