XOM API for Processing XML with Java

[Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo AT metalab.unc.edu>]

At 11:55 AM -0500 9/19/02, Michael McEniry wrote:
> Is it confusing that Element is playing multiple container roles?
>  - Attribute map (map-like set?)
>  - namespace set (set-like map?)
>  - Element list
>  - Node/TreeNode

This may be confusing, but if it is that's because XML is confusing 
here. I'm not going to fix that.

> The method names should consistently identify the role and
> function. For example, Element-as-Attribute-map should have
> addAttribute, removeAttribute, and getAttribute.

Yes, that does seem to be what people like, so that is probably what 
it will become. Fortunately, modern refactoring tools make these 
sorts of changes very easy to implement. :-)

> Why does Element have both "Attribute getAttribute(String name)"
> and "String readAttribute(String name)"?

The former returns an Attribute object. The latter returns an 
attribute value. Originally, I just used getAttribute().getValue() 
but that's asking for NullPointerExceptions.

This is the second or third time I've had to answer this question, so 
maybe "readAttribute" is not the best name. Should it just be 
"getAttributeValue()" perhaps? Longer to type, but maybe more obvious.
--

+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo AT metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
|          XML in a  Nutshell, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly, 2002)          |
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|  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0596002920/cafeaulaitA/  |
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