From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2009-09-25T22:13:27+09:00
Subject: Re: Ordering XML Attributes with Hpricot?

2009/9/25 Lance Pollard <lancejpollard@gmail.com>:
> This means though I have to do two passes on the XML:
>
> 1) Modify the nodes with data the way nokogiri or hpricot do it (xpath
> and whatnot)
> 2) Format the xml using regular expression on pure strings, not using
> the xml parsing engines.
>
> Is that correct?

I would not work on the output XML via String replacements.  I would
rather adjust the output process.  For example, if you would be
working with REXML you could implement a Formatter which outputs
attributes in a particular order.  I don't know whether this can be
done with Nokogiri or Hpricot as well or as easily.

Kind regards

robert


require 'rexml/document'

class OrderedAttributes < REXML::Formatters::Pretty
  def write_element(elm, out)
    att = elm.attributes

    class <<att
      alias _each_attribute each_attribute

      def each_attribute(&b)
        to_enum(:_each_attribute).sort_by {|x| x.name}.each(&b)
      end
    end

    super(elm, out)
  end
end

doc = REXML::Document.new(DATA.read)

fmt = REXML::Formatters::Pretty.new
fmt.write(doc, $stdout)
puts

fmt = OrderedAttributes.new
fmt.write(doc, $stdout)
puts

__END__
<foo battr="1" aattr="2" cattr="3">
</foo>



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