2010-09-17 09:14:14 -04:00
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<!DOCTYPE documentation SYSTEM "http://www.germane-software.com/software/documentation/documentation.dtd">
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<documentation>
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<head>
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<title>REXML Tutorial</title>
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<version>$Revision: 1.1.2.1 $</version>
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<date>*2001-296+594</date>
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<home>http://www.germane-software.com/~ser/software/rexml</home>
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<base></base>
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<language>ruby</language>
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<author email="ser@germane-software.com"
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href="http://www.germane-software.com/~ser">Sean Russell</author>
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</head>
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<overview>
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<purpose lang="en">
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<p>This is a tutorial for using <link
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href="http://www.germane-software.com/~ser/software/rexml">REXML</link>,
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a pure Ruby XML processor.</p>
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</purpose>
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<general>
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<p>REXML was inspired by the Electric XML library for Java, which
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features an easy-to-use API, small size, and speed. Hopefully, REXML,
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designed with the same philosophy, has these same features. I've tried
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to keep the API as intuitive as possible, and have followed the Ruby
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methodology for method naming and code flow, rather than mirroring the
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Java API.</p>
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<p>REXML supports both tree and stream document parsing. Stream parsing
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is faster (about 1.5 times as fast). However, with stream parsing, you
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don't get access to features such as XPath.</p>
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<p>The <link href="../doc/index.html">API</link> documentation also
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contains code snippits to help you learn how to use various methods.
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This tutorial serves as a starting point and quick guide to using
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REXML.</p>
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<subsection title="Tree Parsing XML and accessing Elements">
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<p>We'll start with parsing an XML document</p>
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<example>require "rexml/document"
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file = File.new( "mydoc.xml" )
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doc = REXML::Document.new file</example>
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<p>Line 3 creates a new document and parses the supplied file. You can
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also do the following</p>
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<example>require "rexml/document"
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include REXML # so that we don't have to prefix everything with REXML::...
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string = <<EOF
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<mydoc>
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<someelement attribute="nanoo">Text, text, text</someelement>
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</mydoc>
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EOF
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doc = Document.new string</example>
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<p>So parsing a string is just as easy as parsing a file. For future
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examples, I'm going to omit both the <code>require</code> and
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<code>include</code> lines.</p>
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<p>Once you have a document, you can access elements in that document
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in a number of ways:</p>
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<list>
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<item>The <code>Element</code> class itself has
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<code>each_element_with_attribute</code>, a common way of accessing
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elements.</item>
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<item>The attribute <code>Element.elements</code> is an
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<code>Elements</code> class instance which has the <code>each</code>
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and <code>[]</code> methods for accessing elements. Both methods can
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be supplied with an XPath for filtering, which makes them very
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powerful.</item>
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<item>Since <code>Element</code> is a subclass of Parent, you can
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also access the element's children directly through the Array-like
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methods <code>Element[], Element.each, Element.find,
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Element.delete</code>. This is the fastest way of accessing
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children, but note that, being a true array, XPath searches are not
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supported, and that all of the element children are contained in
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this array, not just the Element children.</item>
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</list>
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<p>Here are a few examples using these methods. First is the source
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document used in the examples. Save this as mydoc.xml before running
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any of the examples that require it:</p>
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<example title="The source document"><inventory title="OmniCorp Store #45x10^3">
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<section name="health">
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<item upc="123456789" stock="12">
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<name>Invisibility Cream</name>
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<price>14.50</price>
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<description>Makes you invisible</description>
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</item>
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<item upc="445322344" stock="18">
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<name>Levitation Salve</name>
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<price>23.99</price>
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<description>Levitate yourself for up to 3 hours per application</description>
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</item>
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</section>
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<section name="food">
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<item upc="485672034" stock="653">
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<name>Blork and Freen Instameal</name>
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<price>4.95</price>
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<description>A tasty meal in a tablet; just add water</description>
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</item>
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<item upc="132957764" stock="44">
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<name>Grob winglets</name>
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<price>3.56</price>
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<description>Tender winglets of Grob. Just add water</description>
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</item>
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</section>
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</inventory></example>
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<example title="Accessing Elements">doc = Document.new File.new("mydoc.xml")
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doc.elements.each("inventory/section") { |element| puts element.attributes["name"] }
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# -> health
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# -> food
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doc.elements.each("*/section/item") { |element| puts element.attributes["upc"] }
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# -> 123456789
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# -> 445322344
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# -> 485672034
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# -> 132957764
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root = doc.root
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puts root.attributes["title"]
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# -> OmniCorp Store #45x10^3
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puts root.elements["section/item[@stock='44']"].attributes["upc"]
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# -> 132957764
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puts root.elements["section"].attributes["name"]
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# -> health (returns the first encountered matching element)
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puts root.elements[1].attributes["name"]
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# -> health (returns the FIRST child element)
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root.detect {|node| node.kind_of? Element and node.attributes["name"] == "food" }</example>
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<p>Notice the second-to-last line of code. Element children in REXML
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are indexed starting at 1, not 0. This is because XPath itself counts
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elements from 1, and REXML maintains this relationship; IE,
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<code>root.elements['*[1]'] == root.elements[1]</code>. The last line
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finds the first child element with the name of "food". As you can see
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in this example, accessing attributes is also straightforward.</p>
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<p>You can also access xpaths directly via the XPath class.</p>
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<example title="Using XPath"># The invisibility cream is the first <item>
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invisibility = XPath.first( doc, "//item" )
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# Prints out all of the prices
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XPath.each( doc, "//price") { |element| puts element.text }
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# Gets an array of all of the "name" elements in the document.
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names = XPath.match( doc, "//name" ) </example>
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<p>Another way of getting an array of matching nodes is through
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Element.elements.to_a(). Although this is a method on elements, if
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passed an XPath it can return an array of arbitrary objects. This is
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due to the fact that XPath itself can return arbitrary nodes
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(Attribute nodes, Text nodes, and Element nodes).</p>
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<example title="Using to_a()">all_elements = doc.elements.to_a
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all_children = doc.to_a
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all_upc_strings = doc.elements.to_a( "//item/attribute::upc" )
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all_name_elements = doc.elements.to_a( "//name" )</example>
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</subsection>
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<subsection title="Text Nodes">
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<p>REXML attempts to make the common case simple, but this means that
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the uncommon case can be complicated. This is especially true with
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Text nodes.</p>
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<p>Text nodes have a lot of behavior, and in the case of internal
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entities, what you get may be different from what you expect. When
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REXML reads an XML document, in parses the DTD and creates an internal
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table of entities. If it finds any of these entities in the document,
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it replaces them with their values:</p>
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<example title="Entity Replacement">doc = Document.new '<!DOCTYPE foo [
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<!ENTITY ent "replace">
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]><a>&ent;</a>'
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doc.root.text #-> "replace"
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</example>
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<p>When you write the document back out, REXML replaces the values
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with the entity reference:</p>
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<example>doc.to_s
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# Generates:
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# <!DOCTYPE foo [
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# <!ENTITY ent "replace">
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# ]><a>&ent;</a></example>
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<p>But there's a problem. What happens if only some of the words are
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also entity reference values?</p>
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<example>doc = Document.new '<!DOCTYPE foo [
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<!ENTITY ent "replace">
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]><a>replace &ent;</a>'
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doc.root.text #-> "replace replace"
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</example>
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<p>Well, REXML does the only thing it can:</p>
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<example>doc.to_s
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# Generates:
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# <!DOCTYPE foo [
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# <!ENTITY ent "replace">
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# ]><a>&ent; &ent;</a></example>
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<p>This is probably not what you expect. However, when designing
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REXML, I had a choice between this behavior, and using immutable text
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nodes. The problem is that, if you can change the text in a node,
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REXML can never tell which tokens you want to have replaced with
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entities. There is a wrinkle: REXML will write what it gets in as long
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as you don't access the text. This is because REXML does lazy
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evaluation of entities. Therefore,</p>
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<example title="Lazy Evaluation">doc = Document.new( '<!DOCTYPE foo
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[ <!ENTITY ent "replace"> ]><a>replace
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&ent;</a>' ) doc.to_s # Generates: # <!DOCTYPE foo [ #
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<!ENTITY ent "replace"> # ]><a><emphasis>replace
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&ent;</emphasis></a> doc.root.text #-> Now accessed,
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entities have been resolved doc.to_s # Generates: # <!DOCTYPE foo [
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# <!ENTITY ent "replace"> # ]><a><emphasis>&ent;
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&ent;</emphasis></a></example>
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<p>There is a programmatic solution: <code>:raw</code>. If you set the
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<code>:raw</code> flag on any Text or Element node, the entities
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within that node will not be processed. This means that you'll have to
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deal with entities yourself:</p>
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<example title="Entity Replacement">doc = Document.new('<!DOCTYPE
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foo [ <!ENTITY ent "replace"> ]><a>replace
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&ent;</a>',<emphasis>{:raw=>:all})</emphasis>
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doc.root.text #-> "replace &ent;" doc.to_s # Generates: #
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<!DOCTYPE foo [ # <!ENTITY ent "replace"> #
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]><a>replace &ent;</a></example>
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</subsection>
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<subsection title="Creating XML documents">
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<p>Again, there are a couple of mechanisms for creating XML documents
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in REXML. Adding elements by hand is faster than the convenience
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method, but which you use will probably be a matter of aesthetics.</p>
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<example title="Creating elements">el = someelement.add_element "myel"
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# creates an element named "myel", adds it to "someelement", and returns it
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el2 = el.add_element "another", {"id"=>"10"}
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# does the same, but also sets attribute "id" of el2 to "10"
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el3 = Element.new "blah"
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el1.elements << el3
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el3.attributes["myid"] = "sean"
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# creates el3 "blah", adds it to el1, then sets attribute "myid" to "sean"</example>
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<p>If you want to add text to an element, you can do it by either
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creating Text objects and adding them to the element, or by using the
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convenience method <code>text=</code></p>
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<example title="Adding text">el1 = Element.new "myelement"
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el1.text = "Hello world!"
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# -> <myelement>Hello world!</myelement>
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el1.add_text "Hello dolly"
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# -> <myelement>Hello world!Hello dolly</element>
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el1.add Text.new("Goodbye")
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# -> <myelement>Hello world!Hello dollyGoodbye</element>
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el1 << Text.new(" cruel world")
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# -> <myelement>Hello world!Hello dollyGoodbye cruel world</element></example>
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<p>But note that each of these text objects are still stored as
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separate objects; <code>el1.text</code> will return "Hello world!";
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<code>el1[2]</code> will return a Text object with the contents
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"Goodbye".</p>
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<p>Please be aware that all text nodes in REXML are UTF-8 encoded, and
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all of your code must reflect this. You may input and output other
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encodings (UTF-8, UTF-16, ISO-8859-1, and UNILE are all supported,
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input and output), but within your program, you must pass REXML UTF-8
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strings.</p>
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<p>I can't emphasize this enough, because people do have problems with
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this. REXML can't possibly alway guess correctly how your text is
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encoded, so it always assumes the text is UTF-8. It also does not warn
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you when you try to add text which isn't properly encoded, for the
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same reason. You must make sure that you are adding UTF-8 text.
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 If you're adding standard 7-bit ASCII, which is most common, you
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don't have to worry.  If you're using ISO-8859-1 text (characters
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above 0x80), you must convert it to UTF-8 before adding it to an
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element.  You can do this with the shard:
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<code>text.unpack("C*").pack("U*")</code>. If you ignore this warning
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and add 8-bit ASCII characters to your documents, your code may
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work... or it may not.  In either case, REXML is not at fault.
|
|
|
|
|
You have been warned.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>One last thing: alternate encoding output support only works from
|
|
|
|
|
Document.write() and Document.to_s(). If you want to write out other
|
|
|
|
|
nodes with a particular encoding, you must wrap your output object
|
|
|
|
|
with Output:</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example title="Encoded Output">e = Element.new "<a/>"
|
|
|
|
|
e.text = "f\xfcr" # ISO-8859-1 'ü'
|
|
|
|
|
o = ''
|
|
|
|
|
e.write( Output.new( o, "ISO-8859-1" ) )
|
|
|
|
|
</example>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>You can pass Output any of the supported encodings.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>If you want to insert an element between two elements, you can use
|
|
|
|
|
either the standard Ruby array notation, or
|
|
|
|
|
<code>Parent.insert_before</code> and
|
|
|
|
|
<code>Parent.insert_after</code>.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example title="Inserts">doc = Document.new "<a><one/><three/></a>"
|
|
|
|
|
doc.root[1,0] = Element.new "two"
|
|
|
|
|
# -> <a><one/><two/><three/></a>
|
|
|
|
|
three = doc.elements["a/three"]
|
|
|
|
|
doc.root.insert_after three, Element.new "four"
|
|
|
|
|
# -> <a><one/><two/><three/><four/></a>
|
|
|
|
|
# A convenience method allows you to insert before/after an XPath:
|
|
|
|
|
doc.root.insert_after( "//one", Element.new("one-five") )
|
|
|
|
|
# -> <a><one/><one-five/><two/><three/><four/></a>
|
|
|
|
|
# Another convenience method allows you to insert after/before an element:
|
|
|
|
|
four = doc.elements["//four"]
|
|
|
|
|
four.previous_sibling = Element.new("three-five")
|
|
|
|
|
# -> <a><one/><one-five/><two/><three/><three-five/><four/></a></example>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The <code>raw</code> flag in the <code>Text</code> constructor can
|
|
|
|
|
be used to tell REXML to leave strings which have entities defined for
|
|
|
|
|
them alone.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example title="Raw text">doc = Document.new( "<?xml version='1.0?>
|
|
|
|
|
<!DOCTYPE foo SYSTEM 'foo.dtd' [
|
|
|
|
|
<!ENTITY % s "Sean">
|
|
|
|
|
]>
|
|
|
|
|
<a/>"
|
|
|
|
|
t = Text.new( "Sean", false, nil, false )
|
|
|
|
|
doc.root.text = t
|
|
|
|
|
t.to_s # -> &s;
|
|
|
|
|
t = Text.new( "Sean", false, nil, true )
|
|
|
|
|
doc.root.text = t
|
|
|
|
|
t.to_s # -> Sean</example>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Note that, in all cases, the <code>value()</code> method returns
|
|
|
|
|
the text with entities expanded, so the <code>raw</code> flag only
|
|
|
|
|
affects the <code>to_s()</code> method. If the <code>raw</code> is set
|
|
|
|
|
for a text node, then <code>to_s()</code> will not entities will not
|
|
|
|
|
normalize (turn into entities) entity values. You can not create raw
|
|
|
|
|
text nodes that contain illegal XML, so the following will generate a
|
|
|
|
|
parse error:</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example>t = Text.new( "&", false, nil, true )</example>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>You can also tell REXML to set the Text children of given elements
|
|
|
|
|
to raw automatically, on parsing or creating:</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example title="Automatic raw text handling">doc = REXML::Document.new( source, { :raw => %w{ tag1 tag2 tag3 } }</example>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>In this example, all tags named "tag1", "tag2", or "tag3" will have
|
|
|
|
|
any Text children set to raw text. If you want to have all of the text
|
|
|
|
|
processed as raw text, pass in the :all tag:</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example title="Raw documents">doc = REXML::Document.new( source, { :raw => :all })</example>
|
|
|
|
|
</subsection>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<subsection title="Writing a tree">
|
|
|
|
|
<p>There aren't many things that are more simple than writing a REXML
|
|
|
|
|
tree. Simply pass an object that supports <code><<( String
|
|
|
|
|
)</code> to the <code>write</code> method of any object. In Ruby, both
|
|
|
|
|
IO instances (File) and String instances support <<.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example>doc.write $stdout
|
|
|
|
|
output = ""
|
|
|
|
|
doc.write output</example>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>If you want REXML to pretty-print output, pass <code>write()</code>
|
|
|
|
|
an indent value greater than -1:</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example title="Write with pretty-printing">doc.write( $stdout, 0 )</example>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>REXML will not, by default, write out the XML declaration unless
|
|
|
|
|
you specifically ask for them. If a document is read that contains an
|
|
|
|
|
XML declaration, that declaration <emphasis>will</emphasis> be written
|
|
|
|
|
faithfully. The other way you can tell REXML to write the declaration
|
|
|
|
|
is to specifically add the declaration:</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example title="Adding an XML Declaration to a Document">doc = Document.new
|
|
|
|
|
doc.add_element 'foo'
|
|
|
|
|
doc.to_s #-> <foo/>
|
|
|
|
|
doc << XMLDecl.new
|
|
|
|
|
doc.to_s #-> <?xml version='1.0'?><foo/></example>
|
|
|
|
|
</subsection>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<subsection title="Iterating">
|
|
|
|
|
<p>There are four main methods of iterating over children.
|
|
|
|
|
<code>Element.each</code>, which iterates over all the children;
|
|
|
|
|
<code>Element.elements.each</code>, which iterates over just the child
|
|
|
|
|
Elements; <code>Element.next_element</code> and
|
|
|
|
|
<code>Element.previous_element</code>, which can be used to fetch the
|
|
|
|
|
next Element siblings; and <code>Element.next_sibling</code> and
|
|
|
|
|
<code>Eleemnt.previous_sibling</code>, which fetches the next and
|
|
|
|
|
previous siblings, regardless of type.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
</subsection>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<subsection title="Stream Parsing">
|
|
|
|
|
<p>REXML stream parsing requires you to supply a Listener class. When
|
|
|
|
|
REXML encounters events in a document (tag start, text, etc.) it
|
|
|
|
|
notifies your listener class of the event. You can supply any subset
|
|
|
|
|
of the methods, but make sure you implement method_missing if you
|
|
|
|
|
don't implement them all. A StreamListener module has been supplied as
|
|
|
|
|
a template for you to use.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example title="Stream parsing">list = MyListener.new
|
|
|
|
|
source = File.new "mydoc.xml"
|
|
|
|
|
REXML::Document.parse_stream(source, list)</example>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Stream parsing in REXML is much like SAX, where events are
|
|
|
|
|
generated when the parser encounters them in the process of parsing
|
|
|
|
|
the document. When a tag is encountered, the stream listener's
|
|
|
|
|
<code>tag_start()</code> method is called. When the tag end is
|
|
|
|
|
encountered, <code>tag_end()</code> is called. When text is
|
|
|
|
|
encountered, <code>text()</code> is called, and so on, until the end
|
|
|
|
|
of the stream is reached. One other note: the method
|
|
|
|
|
<code>entity()</code> is called when an <code>&entity;</code> is
|
|
|
|
|
encountered in text, and only then.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Please look at the <link
|
|
|
|
|
href="../doc/classes/REXML/StreamListener.html">StreamListener
|
|
|
|
|
API</link> for more information.<footnote>You must generate the API
|
|
|
|
|
documentation with rdoc or download the API documentation from the
|
|
|
|
|
REXML website for this documentation.</footnote></p>
|
|
|
|
|
</subsection>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<subsection title="Whitespace">
|
|
|
|
|
<p>By default, REXML respects whitespace in your document. In many
|
|
|
|
|
applications, you want the parser to compress whitespace in your
|
|
|
|
|
document. In these cases, you have to tell the parser which elements
|
|
|
|
|
you want to respect whitespace in by passing a context to the
|
|
|
|
|
parser:</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example title="Compressing whitespace">doc = REXML::Document.new( source, { :compress_whitespace => %w{ tag1 tag2 tag3 } }</example>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Whitespace for tags "tag1", "tag2", and "tag3" will be compressed;
|
|
|
|
|
all other tags will have their whitespace respected. Like :raw, you
|
|
|
|
|
can set :compress_whitespace to :all, and have all elements have their
|
|
|
|
|
whitespace compressed.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>You may also use the tag <code>:respect_whitespace</code>, which
|
|
|
|
|
flip-flops the behavior. If you use <code>:respect_whitespace</code>
|
|
|
|
|
for one or more tags, only those elements will have their whitespace
|
|
|
|
|
respected; all other tags will have their whitespace compressed.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
</subsection>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<subsection title="Automatic Entity Processing">
|
|
|
|
|
<p>REXML does some automatic processing of entities for your
|
|
|
|
|
convenience. The processed entities are &, <, >, ", and '.
|
|
|
|
|
If REXML finds any of these characters in Text or Attribute values, it
|
|
|
|
|
automatically turns them into entity references when it writes them
|
|
|
|
|
out. Additionally, when REXML finds any of these entity references in
|
|
|
|
|
a document source, it converts them to their character equivalents.
|
|
|
|
|
All other entity references are left unprocessed. If REXML finds an
|
|
|
|
|
&, <, or > in the document source, it will generate a
|
|
|
|
|
parsing error.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example title="Entity processing">bad_source = "<a>Cats & dogs</a>"
|
|
|
|
|
good_source = "<a>Cats &amp; &#100;ogs</a>"
|
|
|
|
|
doc = REXML::Document.new bad_source
|
|
|
|
|
# Generates a parse error
|
|
|
|
|
doc = REXML::Document.new good_source
|
|
|
|
|
puts doc.root.text
|
|
|
|
|
# -> "Cats & &#100;ogs"
|
|
|
|
|
doc.root.write $stdout
|
|
|
|
|
# -> "<a>Cats &amp; &#100;ogs</a>"
|
|
|
|
|
doc.root.attributes["m"] = "x'y\"z"
|
|
|
|
|
puts doc.root.attributes["m"]
|
|
|
|
|
# -> "x'y\"z"
|
|
|
|
|
doc.root.write $stdout
|
|
|
|
|
# -> "<a m='x&apos;y&quot;z'>Cats &amp; &#100;ogs</a>"</example>
|
|
|
|
|
</subsection>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<subsection title="Namespaces">
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Namespaces are fully supported in REXML and within the XPath
|
|
|
|
|
parser. There are a few caveats when using XPath, however:</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<list>
|
|
|
|
|
<item>If you don't supply a namespace mapping, the default namespace
|
|
|
|
|
mapping of the context element is used. This has its limitations,
|
|
|
|
|
but is convenient for most purposes.</item>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<item>If you need to supply a namespace mapping, you must use the
|
|
|
|
|
XPath methods <code>each</code>, <code>first</code>, and
|
|
|
|
|
<code>match</code> and pass them the mapping.</item>
|
|
|
|
|
</list>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example title="Using namespaces">source = "<a xmlns:x='foo' xmlns:y='bar'><x:b id='1'/><y:b id='2'/></a>"
|
|
|
|
|
doc = Document.new source
|
|
|
|
|
doc.elements["/a/x:b"].attributes["id"] # -> '1'
|
|
|
|
|
XPath.first(doc, "/a/m:b", {"m"=>"bar"}).attributes["id"] # -> '2'
|
|
|
|
|
doc.elements["//x:b"].prefix # -> 'x'
|
|
|
|
|
doc.elements["//x:b"].namespace # -> 'foo'
|
|
|
|
|
XPath.first(doc, "//m:b", {"m"=>"bar"}).prefix # -> 'y'</example>
|
|
|
|
|
</subsection>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<subsection title="Pull parsing">
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The pull parser API is not yet stable. When it settles down, I'll
|
|
|
|
|
fill in this section. For now, you'll have to bite the bullet and read
|
|
|
|
|
the <link
|
|
|
|
|
href="http://www.germane-software.com/software/rexml_doc/classes/REXML/PullParser.html">PullParser</link>
|
|
|
|
|
API docs. Ignore the PullListener class; it is a private helper
|
|
|
|
|
class.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
</subsection>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<subsection title="SAX2 Stream Parsing">
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The original REXML stream parsing API is very minimal. This also
|
|
|
|
|
means that it is fairly fast. For a more complex, more "standard" API,
|
|
|
|
|
REXML also includes a streaming parser with a SAX2+ API. This API
|
|
|
|
|
differs from SAX2 in a couple of ways, such as having more filters and
|
|
|
|
|
multiple notification mechanisms, but the core API is SAX2.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The two classes in the SAX2 API are <link
|
|
|
|
|
href="http://www.germane-software.com/software/rexml_doc/classes/REXML/SAX2Parser.html"><code>SAX2Parser</code></link>
|
|
|
|
|
and <link
|
|
|
|
|
href="http://www.germane-software.com/software/rexml_doc/classes/REXML/SAX2Listener.html"><code>SAX2Listener</code></link>.
|
|
|
|
|
You can use the parser in one of five ways, depending on your needs.
|
|
|
|
|
Three of the ways are useful if you are filtering for a small number
|
|
|
|
|
of events in the document, such as just printing out the names of all
|
|
|
|
|
of the elements in a document, or getting all of the text in a
|
|
|
|
|
document. The other two ways are for more complex processing, where
|
|
|
|
|
you want to be notified of multiple events. The first three involve
|
|
|
|
|
Procs, and the last two involve listeners. The listener mechanisms are
|
|
|
|
|
very similar to the original REXML streaming API, with the addition of
|
|
|
|
|
filtering options, and are faster than the proc mechanisms.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>An example is worth a thousand words, so we'll just take a look at
|
|
|
|
|
a small example of each of the mechanisms. The first example involves
|
|
|
|
|
printing out only the text content of a document.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example title="Filtering for Events with Procs">require 'rexml/sax2parser'
|
|
|
|
|
parser = REXML::SAX2Parser.new( File.new( 'documentation.xml' ) )
|
|
|
|
|
parser.listen( :characters ) {|text| puts text }
|
|
|
|
|
parser.parse</example>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>In this example, we tell the parser to call our block for every
|
|
|
|
|
<code>characters</code> event. "characters" is what SAX2 calls Text
|
|
|
|
|
nodes. The event is identified by the symbol <code>:characters</code>.
|
|
|
|
|
There are a number of these events, including
|
|
|
|
|
<code>:element_start</code>, <code>:end_prefix_mapping</code>, and so
|
|
|
|
|
on; the events are named after the methods in the
|
|
|
|
|
<code>SAX2Listener</code> API, so refer to that document for a
|
|
|
|
|
complete list.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>You can additionally filter for particular elements by passing an
|
|
|
|
|
array of tag names to the <code>listen</code> method. In further
|
|
|
|
|
examples, we will not include the <code>require</code> or parser
|
|
|
|
|
construction lines, as they are the same for all of these
|
|
|
|
|
examples.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example title="Filtering for Events on Particular Elements with Procs">parser.listen( :characters, %w{ changelog todo } ) {|text| puts text }
|
|
|
|
|
parser.parse</example>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>In this example, only the text content of changelog and todo
|
|
|
|
|
elements will be printed. The array of tag names can also contain
|
|
|
|
|
regular expressions which the element names will be matched
|
|
|
|
|
against.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Finally, as a shortcut, if you do not pass a symbol to the listen
|
|
|
|
|
method, it will default to <code>:element_start</code></p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<example title="Default Events">parser.listen( %w{ item }) do |uri,localname,qname,attributes|
|
|
|
|
|
puts attributes['version']
|
|
|
|
|
end
|
|
|
|
|
parser.parse</example>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>This example prints the "version" attribute of all "item" elements
|
|
|
|
|
in the document. Notice that the number of arguments passed to the
|
|
|
|
|
block is larger than for <code>:text</code>; again, check the
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SAX2Listener API for a list of what arguments are passed the blocks
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for a given event.</p>
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<p>The last two mechanisms for parsing use the SAX2Listener API. Like
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StreamListener, SAX2Listener is a <code>module</code>, so you can
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<code>include</code> it in your class to give you an adapter. To use
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the listener model, create a class that implements some of the
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SAX2Listener methods, or all of them if you don't include the
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SAX2Listener model. Add them to a parser as you would blocks, and when
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the parser is run, the methods will be called when events occur.
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Listeners do not use event symbols, but they can filter on element
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names.</p>
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<example title="Filtering for Events with Listeners">listener1 = MySAX2Listener.new
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listener2 = MySAX2Listener.new
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parser.listen( listener1 )
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parser.listen( %{ changelog, todo, credits }, listener2 )
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parser.parse</example>
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<p>In the previous example, <code>listener1</code> will be notified of
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all events that occur, and <code>listener2</code> will only be
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notified of events that occur in <code>changelog</code>,
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<code>todo</code>, and <code>credits</code> elements. We also see that
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multiple listeners can be added to the same parser; multiple blocks
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can also be added, and listeners and blocks can be mixed together.</p>
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<p>There is, as yet, no mechanism for recursion. Two upcoming features
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of the SAX2 API will be the ability to filter based on an XPath, and
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the ability to specify filtering on an elemnt and all of its
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descendants.</p>
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<p><em>WARNING:</em> The SAX2 API for dealing with doctype (DTD)
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events almost <em>certainly</em> will change.</p>
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</subsection>
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<subsection title="Convenience methods">
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<p>Michael Neumann contributed some convenience functions for nodes,
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and they are general enough that I've included. Michael's use-case
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examples follow: <example title="Node convenience functions">#
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Starting with +root_node+, we recursively look for a node with the
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given # +tag+, the given +attributes+ (a Hash) and whoose text equals
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or matches the # +text+ string or regular expression. # # To find the
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following node: # # <td class='abc'>text</td> # # We use:
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# # find_node(root, 'td', {'class' => 'abc'}, "text") # # Returns
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+nil+ if no matching node was found. def find_node(root_node, tag,
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attributes, text) root_node.find_first_recursive {|node| node.name ==
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tag and attributes.all? {|attr, val| node.attributes[attr] == val} and
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text === node.text } end # # Extract specific columns (specified by
|
2013-12-14 05:54:54 -05:00
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the position of it's corresponding # header column) from a table. # #
|
2010-09-17 09:14:14 -04:00
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Given the following table: # # <table> # <tr> #
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<td>A</td> # <td>B</td> #
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<td>C</td> # </tr> # <tr> #
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<td>A.1</td> # <td>B.1</td> #
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<td>C.1</td> # </tr> # <tr> #
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<td>A.2</td> # <td>B.2</td> #
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<td>C.2</td> # </tr> # </table> # # To extract
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|
the first (A) and last (C) column: # # extract_from_table(root_node,
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|
|
["A", "C"]) # # And you get this as result: # # [ # ["A.1", "C.1"], #
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|
|
["A.2", "C.2"] # ] # def extract_from_table(root_node, headers) #
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|
|
extract and collect all header nodes header_nodes = headers.collect {
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|
|header| find_node(root_node, 'td', {}, header) } raise "some headers
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|
|
not found" if header_nodes.compact.size < headers.size # assert
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|
|
that all headers have the same parent 'header_row', which is the row #
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|
in which the header_nodes are contained. 'table' is the surrounding
|
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|
|
table tag. header_row = header_nodes.first.parent table =
|
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|
header_row.parent raise "different parents" unless header_nodes.all?
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|
|
{|n| n.parent == header_row} # we now iterate over all rows in the
|
|
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|
|
table that follows the header_row. # for each row we collect the
|
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|
|
elements at the same positions as the header_nodes. # this is what we
|
|
|
|
|
finally return from the method. (header_row.index_in_parent+1 ..
|
|
|
|
|
table.elements.size).collect do |inx| row = table.elements[inx]
|
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|
|
header_nodes.collect { |n| row.elements[ n.index_in_parent ].text }
|
|
|
|
|
end end</example></p>
|
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|
|
</subsection>
|
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|
|
<subsection title="Conclusion">
|
|
|
|
|
<p>This isn't everything there is to REXML, but it should be enough to
|
|
|
|
|
get started. Check the <link href="../doc/index.html">API
|
|
|
|
|
documentation</link><footnote>You must generate the API documentation
|
|
|
|
|
with rdoc or download the API documentation from the REXML website for
|
|
|
|
|
this documentation.</footnote> for particulars and more examples.
|
|
|
|
|
There are plenty of unit tests in the <code>test/</code> directory,
|
|
|
|
|
and these are great sources of working examples.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
</subsection>
|
|
|
|
|
</general>
|
|
|
|
|
</overview>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<credits>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Among the people who've contributed to this document are:</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<list>
|
|
|
|
|
<item><link href="mailto:deicher@sandia.gov">Eichert, Diana</link> (bug
|
|
|
|
|
fix)</item>
|
|
|
|
|
</list>
|
|
|
|
|
</credits>
|
|
|
|
|
</documentation>
|
