xml-dev - Re: XML Java API Standardization

[digitome@iol.ie (Digitome Ltd.)]

(I am not a Java person so I don't know the syntax for doing the following
in Java.
I presume it is possible. I think the approach might be useful though so
here goes)

The idea is to 

1) have a textual representation of an XML document as a Python program
2) be able to re-create textual representations of XML document structures
as Python programs

The following is a Python representation of a simple XML doc:-

from XMLStructures import *

x = XMLTree (
        XMLElement("FOO",(("ATTR1","VALUE1"),("ATTR2","VALUE2")),
         (
          XMLElement("BAR",(),())
         )
        )
)

The nice thing about this is that it is both data file and parser rolled
into one.
A simple "import" statement  recreates the in-memory representation of this 
data structure. Having created/manipulated an XMLTree the textual
representation can be created with a single print statement:-

x = XMLTree (
        XMLElement("FOO",(("ATTR1","VALUE1"),("ATTR2","VALUE2")),
         (
          XMLElement("BAR",(),())
         )
        )
)

# Change x here
# ...
print x

XMLTree (XMLElement ("FOO",(('ATTR1', 'VALUE1'), ('ATTR2',
'VALUE2')),XMLElement ("BAR",(),())))

1) Such structures give an immediate API in the form of Lispy list
processing stuff.
2) Such structures allow parsers to be compared / checked for correct
interpretation of XML.
3) Such structures give developers something to aim at when developing XML
markup
aware tools.

Just in case anyone is interested, here is the Python code for the classes :-

class XMLTree:
	def __init__ (self,r):
		self.root = r
	def __repr__ (self):
		return "XMLTree (%s)" % (self.root,)

class XMLElement:
	def __init__(self,gi,attlist,children):
		self.GI = gi
		self.XMLAttlist = attlist
		self.Children = children
	def __repr__(self):
		return "XMLElement (\"%s\",%s,%s)" % (self.GI,self.XMLAttlist,self.Children)

class XMLPcdata:
	def __init__(self,dat):
		self.data = dat
	def __repr__(self):
		return self.data
Sean Mc Grath

sean@digitome.com
Digitome Electronic Publishing
http://www.digitome.com


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