From: Ed Howland <ed.howland@...>
Date: 2009-12-28T09:51:57+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] Ruby 1.8.7-p248 released.

Thanks for the response Aaron.

On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 5:57 PM, Aaron Patterson >
> I think using redmine will result in faster response.  Currently, rexml
> is considered unmaintained by ruby core.  Since no one is an official
> maintainer, *bugs* filed on redmine will likely get fixed.  However,
> feature requests like changing the stand_alone? method may not.
>

I understand. It is too bad that the maintenance has atrophied for
REXML. It is probably the first XML lib new users to Ruby encounter
(in the Pickaxe book, for example). Pity it can't be updated.

My patch fixes a definate (albeit minor) bug. I'm happy to let the
name of the stand_alone? method stand for backward compatiblity
reasons. As I mentioned or meant to mention, I grabbed the fix from
another ticket at the Trac Wiki for REXML, but I can't find that
ticket now, so I used #152 which was the same issue. The patch is one
line of code (one character actually).


> No.  Just file the ticket for 1.9.  I'm happy to commit bug fix patches
> that come with tests.  I only have permission to commit to trunk though,
> so you'll have to lobby the release managers to get it backported.
>

I'll be glad to submit it to 1.9. Will RSpec tests do or should I
convert them to Test::Unit? (This being my first time on Ruby
Redmine), Should the test demonstrate the bug, then after the patch
runs with only success?

Thanks,

> Hope that helps!
It certainly does.

>
> Also, have you considered using something like nokogiri?

Nokogiri is the dude! I think the XML parsing is pretty smooth,
although I haven't had much of a chance to play with it much. This
problem qas based on an issue that came up when I wrote a custom
matcher for RSpec that matches XML strings. It defines a function
called 'be_functionally_eql' as in:

my_xml.should be_functionally_eql(expected_xml)

... where the two XML's can have varying degrees of 'whiteness'. It
then uses RSpec's difference output to highlight the exact node(s)
that are different.  Of course, it immediately failed on the first
line because of the bug in the standalone attribute.

Cheers and Happy New Year!
Ed


-- 
Ed Howland
http://greenprogrammer.wordpress.com
http://twitter.com/ed_howland