From: "Simon Kröger" <SimonKroeger@...>
Date: 2006-03-14T06:16:01+09:00
Subject: Re: Wrapping XML document in Class

Hi Miles,

interesting idea, i did a quick (proof of concept) hack:
-------------------------------------------------------------
class Xmltree
  attr_accessor :childs
  attr_accessor :content
  attr_accessor :attributes

  def initialize
    self.childs = []
    self.attributes = {};
  end

  def method_missing meth, *args, &block
    return attributes[args[0]] = args[1] if meth == :[]=
    return attributes[args[0]] if meth == :[]
    return self.content = args if meth == '='.intern

    unless child = childs.assoc(meth.to_s.chomp('='))
      childs << child = [meth.to_s.chomp('='), Xmltree.new]
    end

    return child[1] if meth.to_s[-1] != ?=
    child[1].content = args
  end

  def to_s
    childs.map do |t, c|
      """<#{t} #{c.attributes.map do |a, v|
      "#{a}=\"#{v}\""
      end.join(' ')}>\n#{c}</#{t}>\n"""
    end.join + content.to_s + (content ? "\n" : '')
  end
end
-------------------------------------------------------------

usage:
-------------------------------------------------------------
xml = Xmltree.new

xml.header.title = 'this is a demo'
xml.body.component['type'] = 'the answer'
xml.body.component = 42

puts xml
-------------------------------------------------------------

output:
-------------------------------------------------------------
<header >
<title >
this is a demo
</title>
</header>
<body >
<component type="the answer">
42
</component>
</body>
-------------------------------------------------------------

cheers

Simon

Miles Monroe:
> I would like to use Ruby and REXML to wrap an XML document and allow
> access to the element nodes, attributes, and text.  Essentially I need
> an XML document builder loosely coupled from the document.
> 
> It seems like Ruby is powerful enough to code generate a class given an
> XML document or build an object at run-time with the appropriate
> accessors.
> 
> For instance:
> 
> order = XmlBuilder.new
> 
> order.add("root").add("header")
> order.root.add("body")
> 
> order.body.add("component").attributes["type"] = "metric"
> 
> order.write($stdout)
> 
> I'd also like to be able to plug-in input validation when assigning
> values to elements and attributes.
> 
> Has anyone done this before?
> 
> Thanks.
>