Re: SimpleXML and Default Cast To String

Hello Andi, Tuesday, January 13, 2004, 7:35:05 AM, you wrote: > At 07:21 PM 1/12/2004 -0500, Sterling Hughes wrote: >>I'm not arguing whether or not getChildren() is easier. Of course it >>is. I'm arguing that getChildren() is not within the spirit of the >>simplexml extension, which is explicitly designed to be without accessor >>methods. I further, because of the availability of XPath don't see the >>need to have such an accessor. Perhaps I would reconsider if this were >>a particularly hard problem to solve without internal functions, but >>when its so simple, I don't see the point. >> >>There are plenty of other utility API's the extension could have that >>will help in using it. getElementsByTagName() is a great function to >>have - its simple *and* more efficient than Xpath, why isn't it there? >>Because that's not what this extension is about. Its not about an >>"easy" API for XML, or an "efficient" API for XML. Although it is >>signifigantly easier and more efficient. It's a *simple*, uncluttered >>API for XML. > I think that no matter what, it stays simple because you don't have to use > the methods. The methods make it "easy" and quite a bit more powerful. >>SimpleXML is *not* supposed to reinvent DOM. It is supposed to be a >>data structure view of XML that can easily be integrated with other >>future components (such as XmlReader and XmlWriter API's). > It's not supposed to be DOM but I think there's a lot of added value in > making it easy/simple to do some of the basic methods. I agree it shouldn't > be bloated with all of DOM's capabilities. I guess nobody wants a whole bunch of methods in SXE. >>I can accept getChildren() and getAttributes() (or better, just >>children() and attributes()) as methods on objects, but I'm not happy >>with them at all. These two methods were considered for inclusion in >>my original thoughts on simplexml, and I decided against them for the >>reasons I've mentioned above. Anyhow, shall we put it to a vote on >>these two methods and move on? >> >>I'm -1 on having them. > +1 and I prefer get*() :) +1 too and they only make sense if they are named get*() because that are the names of the interface methods they implement. -- Best regards, Marcus mailto:helly@php.net