XOM API for Processing XML with Java

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

At 4:45 PM -0700 9/27/02, O'Brien-Strain, Eamonn wrote:


> * API size.  Comparing the javadocs
>  http://www.cafeconleche.org/XOM/doc/nu/xom/package-summary.html
>  http://sparta-xml.sourceforge.net/api/com/hp/hpl/sparta/package-summary.html
> the two APIs are remarkably similar.  Sparta has fewer DOM-related 
> classes because it ignores comments and processing instructions, and 
> it treats attributes as Strings rather than having an Attribute 
> class.

Making attributes merely properties of elements instead of their own 
type is an interesting idea. I considered it early on for XOM, but 
rejected it for several reasons:

1. It made my Element API very cluttered. Element needed methods to 
getAttributeByName, getAttributeByNameNamespace, getAttributeType, 
and a few more. Since you don't track Attribute namespaces or types 
Sparta's API is less cluttered than XOM's would have been if it had 
followed this approach.

2. I saw that when XPath was eventually added, an Attribute node 
class would be necessary. What does Sparta do when someone passes it 
an XPath that selects an Attribute node or nodes?
--

+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo AT metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
|          XML in a  Nutshell, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly, 2002)          |
|              http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian2/              |
|  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0596002920/cafeaulaitA/  |
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