From: Sean Russell <ser@...>
Date: 2001-11-10T06:48:43+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:24808] REXML XPath testers needed

Hi all,

The new REXML XPath code passes my unit tests, but the tests are still 
rather sparse.  I'm looking for some people to break my XPath 
implementation.  

Ideally, I'd like to see testers give me reports in one of two formats:

1) As patches to the unit test suite (suite.rb).  If you do this, please 
make sure that you supply your additions as methods.  I'll give an example 
below.
or
2) As an "'xpath string' on 'xmlsubtree' should return 'x'".

The easiest for everybody is (1).  If you choose this, please add methods 
to the XPathTester class.  Write your method like this:

  # myname <myemail>
  test_myinitials_somedescriptivename
    ...
  end

so that I can track who submitted what and give you appropriate credit, and 
email you if I don't understand something.  Then either email me the entire 
suite.rb, or a diff of the file.


I haven't generated benchmarks for this implementation, but I don't expect 
it to be faster than the previous implementation.  What it *does* provide 
is:

1) boolean predicates.  The previous implementation didn't accept 
predicates with boolean operators in them such as "name()='blah' or @id='5'"
2) much improved functions.  It should be much easier to add functions to 
the Functions class.  This was really necessary for to support XSL 
implementors.
3) all around more robust XPath processing.  Axes, in particular, should 
rapidly improve (although they are still not entirely implemented in this 
release).  Does anybode use axes?
4) a better design.  It is now much more flexible, and adding functionality 
should be less troublesome.  Hah.  I've said *that* before.

Please note that this is *alpha* software.  I will *not* be updating the 
REXML release until I get some more unit tests written.  The only way to 
get this release is to email me.

Thanks.

-- 
--- SER