Re: simple xml api

On Thu, 2003-01-30 at 18:18, Sterling Hughes wrote: > Sam Ruby sent me the following URL: > > http://dev2dev.bea.com/articlesnews/discussion/thread.jsp?thread=JSchneider_XML > > It looks really neat, and much in the PHP way of doing things. Take the > following XML document, and I'll show you how easy parsing it is with > the Simple API proposed above (ported slightly to PHP). IMHO, it's a nice way to approach XML documents which are relatively shallow like the example below (data centric XML-docs). But I wouldn't want to process something Docbook-style with that :) And how does it handle attributes, comments, processing instructions, namespaces, etc.? So, it would be certainly a nice additon to DOM/SAX/XSLT, but it can't provide a replacement for them (again IMHO...) chregu > Let's say we're a bar, and we have a list in XML of the different beers > on tap. > > <beers> > <beer> > <name>Becks</name> > <nation>Germany</nation> > </beer> > <beer> > <name>Heineken</name> > <nation>Netherlands</nation> > </beer> > <beer> > <name>Hefeweißer</name> > <nation>Germany</name> > </beer> > <beer> > <name>Samuel Adams</name> > <nation>USA</nation> > </beer> > <beer> > <name>Coors</name> > <nation>Not surprisingly, no one claims ownership</nation> > </beer> > <beer> > <name>Budweiser</name> > <nation>Germany</name> > </beer> > </beers> > > <?php > // $file contains the xml above > $tap = new Simple_XML($file); > foreach ($tap->beers as $beer) { > var_dump($beer->name); > // string "Name of Beer" > } > > $nations = array_unique($tap->range($tap->beers, "nation")); > // All the represented nations in the file > > $germanBeers = $tap->search($tap->beers, > create_function('if ($beer->nation == "Germany") return 1; return 0;') > ); > > // you can also query using Xpath documents > > var_dump($tap->beers[0]->name); > // string (5) "Becks" > > // Modifying documents > $tap->beers[0]->name = "Killians Red"; > $tap->beers[0]->nation = "Ireland"; > > // Add a meta data element, and set the various data > foreach ($tap->beers as $beer) { > $beer->metadata->type = "Heavy"; > $beer->metadata->audience = "People with chest hair"; > > // $distributors is another XML document that we now > // merge with the current document > $beer->metadata->distributors = $distributors->list; > > $tasty = $beer->name == "Coors" ? "No!" : "Yes"; > > $beer->metadata->attributes = <<<ASSIGN_XML > <attribute> > <tasty>$tasty</tasty> > </attribute> > <attribute> > <filling>yes</filling> > </attribute> > ASSIGN_XML; > } > ?> > > To me, this just seems like the PHP5 way of doing XML. Simple, Elegant > and Efficient. We could of course provide DOM and SAX for the purists > (SAX is also better for large files), and people using XSLT. However, I > think this API just maps itself to the problem domain perfectly (and > could easily be implemented on top of libxml). > > Thoughts? > > -Sterling > > PS: Yes, I do know xml_parse_into_struct(). This is different. > > -- > "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, > then they fight you, then you win." > - Gandhi -- christian stocker | bitflux GmbH | schoeneggstrasse 5 | ch-8004 zurich phone +41 1 240 56 70 | mobile +41 76 561 88 60 | fax +41 1 240 56 71 http://www.bitflux.ch | chregu@bitflux.ch | gnupg-keyid 0x5CE1DECB -- christian stocker | bitflux GmbH | schoeneggstrasse 5 | ch-8004 zurich phone +41 1 240 56 70 | mobile +41 76 561 88 60 | fax +41 1 240 56 71 http://www.bitflux.ch | chregu@bitflux.ch | gnupg-keyid 0x5CE1DECB