XOM API for Processing XML with Java

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

At 3:41 PM -0800 1/6/04, dirk bergstrom wrote:


> I know that you're opposed to spurious convenience methods, but I think that
> the effort required to implement the solution is sufficiently high (19
> lines), that it would be worthwhile.

It's not merely the effort to implement it. It's the effort to 
understand it. I think the complexity of a class's API is more than 
linear in the number of public methods. I've seen this in JDOM where 
at least some versions have had lots of little, picky methods to set 
every possible option and combination thereof that differed from each 
other in very minute, not always obvious ways. (The latest version of 
JDOM is a little better, but not clean enough yet for my tastes.)

I also don't think your use-case is common. This is the first time 
I've heard of a request for it. So I'm not going to add it to the 
core API. There are some other options for you though:

1. You can set a maxLength and an indent and then add an 
xml:space="preserve" attribute to all elements where you don't want 
an internal break to appear. Even when indenting and wrapping the 
Serializer will not change the white space inside an element with 
xml:space="preserve"  (Or if it does, that's a bug I need to fix.

2. You can write your own subclass of Serializer that provides the 
methods and behavior you need.

3. You can use nu.xom.samples.WrappingSerializer.  This follows John 
Cowan's suggestion of a Serializer subclass that can be configured to 
pretty print without changing its infoset. That is, it only adds 
white space in the prolog, epilog, and inside tags. Just be warned 
that I make no promises about the stability of classes in the sampels 
package, and they have not been heavily tested like the classes in 
the core, so they may well have bugs.
--

  Elliotte Rusty Harold
  elharo AT metalab.unc.edu
  Effective XML (Addison-Wesley, 2003)
  http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/effectivexml            
  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0321150406/ref%3Dnosim/cafeaulaitA