From: Ryan Fitz <twism113@...>
Date: 2008-10-21T08:04:13+09:00
Subject: REXML and Empty-Elements

Hello all,

I have been using REXML to help me merge some XML files. I noticed that
simply opening an XML document and writing it to a file will
automatically convert the blank nodes with a start-tag and an end-tag to
empty-element tags. Here is an example:

Original.xml:
<User>
  <Name>John</Name>
  <Address1>123 Maple Lane</Address1>
  <Address2></Address2>
  <City>Chicago</City>
  <State>IL</State>
</User>

Basic Ruby Script:
require 'rexml/document'
xml = REXML::Document.new(File.open("Original.xml"))
f = File.new("New.xml","w")
f.puts xml

New.xml:
<User>
  <Name>John</Name>
  <Address1>123 Maple Lane</Address1>
  <Address2 />
  <City>Chicago</City>
  <State>IL</State>
</User>

In this example I would like to prevent Address2 from being modified to
use empty-element tags. I would rather it be displayed as
<Address2></Address2>. Is there a way to prevent REXML from converting
blank nodes?

Thank you for your time.


Ryan
-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.