SimpleObject(3pm) User Contributed Perl Documentation SimpleObject(3pm)
NAME
XML::SimpleObject - Perl extension allowing a simple object representation of a parsed XML::Parser tree.
SYNOPSIS
use XML::SimpleObject;
# Construct with the key/value pairs as argument; this will create its
# own XML::Parser object.
my $xmlobj = new XML::SimpleObject(XML => $XML, ErrorContext => 2);
# ... or construct with the parsed tree as the only argument, having to
# create the XML::Parser object separately.
my $parser = new XML::Parser (ErrorContext => 2, Style => "Tree");
my $xmlobj = new XML::SimpleObject ($parser->parse($XML));
my $filesobj = $xmlobj->child("files")->child("file");
$filesobj->name;
$filesobj->value;
$filesobj->attribute("type");
%attributes = $filesobj->attributes;
@children = $filesobj->children;
@some_children = $filesobj->children("some");
@chilren_names = $filesobj->children_names;
DESCRIPTION
This is a short and simple class allowing simple object access to a parsed XML::Parser tree, with methods for fetching children and
attributes in as clean a manner as possible. My apologies for further polluting the XML:: space; this is a small and quick module, with
easy and compact usage. See XML::SimpleObject::LibXML for the same interface for XML::LibXML.
USAGE
$xmlobj = new XML::SimpleObject($parser->parse($XML))
$parser is an XML::Parser object created with Style "Tree":
my $parser = new XML::Parser (ErrorContext => 2, Style => "Tree");
After creating $xmlobj, this object can now be used to browse the XML tree with the following methods.
$xmlobj->child('NAME')
This will return a new XML::SimpleObject object using the child element NAME.
$xmlobj->children('NAME')
Called with an argument NAME, children() will return an array of XML::SimpleObject objects of element NAME. Thus, if $xmlobj represents
the top-level XML element, 'children' will return an array of all elements directly below the top-level that have the element name
NAME.
$xmlobj->children
Called without arguments, 'children()' will return an array of XML::SimpleObject s for all children elements of $xmlobj. These are not
in the order they occur in
the XML document.
$xmlobj->children_names
This will return an array of all the names of child elements for $xmlobj. You can use this to step through all the children of a given
element (see EXAMPLES). Each name will occur only once, even if multiple children exist with that name.
$xmlobj->value
If the element represented by $xmlobj contains any PCDATA, this method will return that text data.
$xmlobj->attribute('NAME')
This returns the text for an attribute NAME of the XML element represented by $xmlobj.
$xmlobj->attributes
This returns a hash of key/value pairs for all elements in element $xmlobj.
EXAMPLES
Given this XML document:
<files>
<file type="symlink">
<name>/etc/dosemu.conf</name>
<dest>dosemu.conf-drdos703.eval</dest>
</file>
<file>
<name>/etc/passwd</name>
<bytes>948</bytes>
</file>
</files>
You can then interpret the tree as follows:
my $parser = new XML::Parser (ErrorContext => 2, Style => "Tree");
my $xmlobj = new XML::SimpleObject ($parser->parse($XML));
print "Files:
";
foreach my $element ($xmlobj->child("files")->children("file"))
{
print " filename: " . $element->child("name")->value . "
";
if ($element->attribute("type"))
{
print " type: " . $element->attribute("type") . "
";
}
print " bytes: " . $element->child("bytes")->value . "
";
}
This will output:
Files:
filename: /etc/dosemu.conf
type: symlink
bytes: 20
filename: /etc/passwd
bytes: 948
You can use 'children()' without arguments to step through all children of a given element:
my $filesobj = $xmlobj->child("files")->child("file");
foreach my $child ($filesobj->children) {
print "child: ", $child->name, ": ", $child->value, "
";
}
For the tree above, this will output:
child: bytes: 20
child: dest: dosemu.conf-drdos703.eval
child: name: /etc/dosemu.conf
Using 'children_names()', you can step through all children for a given element:
my $filesobj = $xmlobj->child("files");
foreach my $childname ($filesobj->children_names) {
print "$childname has children: ";
print join (", ", $filesobj->child($childname)->children_names), "
";
}
This will print:
file has children: bytes, dest, name
By always using 'children()', you can step through each child object, retrieving them with 'child()'.
AUTHOR
Dan Brian <dbrian@brians.org>
SEE ALSO
perl(1), XML::Parser.
perl v5.10.1 2010-01-03 SimpleObject(3pm)