From: Matt Gushee <mgushee@...>
Date: 2002-10-08T01:52:32+09:00
Subject: Re: REXML & Root Node

On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 01:38:05AM +0900, Hammond, Tony (ELSLON) wrote:
> 
> I'm getting errors from REXML with leading whitespace when I have an XML
> Declaration - see below. (Problem doesn't show up when I omit the
> Declaration.) Any ideas?

Could you be a little more precise about what you mean by 'leading
whitespace'? If it's whitespace before the XML declaration, you should
be getting an error ... although I don't get an error either with or
without the whitespace. What version of REXML are you using (I'm using
2.5.1)?

> Also I'm not quite sure why the document element is returned by the root
> method. Surely the root node is the outermost container which wraps document
> element, PI's, XML Declaration, whitespace, etc.?

Sure ... but the root method returns the root *element*, which is
another name for the document element. I guess whether that's intuitive
or not is in the eye of the beholder (it is for me), but since, for all
practical purposes, the root *node* is equivalent to the document
object, why would you need a method to get it anyway?

-- 
Matt Gushee
Englewood, Colorado, USA
mgushee@havenrock.com
http://www.havenrock.com/