XOM API for Processing XML with Java

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

John Cowan wrote:


> There is no problem in handling this pattern in a type-safe way.
> You just need an XPathResult class with four extraction methods:
> double doubleValue(), String stringValue(), boolean booleanValue(),
> and Nodes nodelistValue().

That's exactly the ugliness I'm trying to avoid: defining a new type 
wrapper that has to be unwrapped before you can do anything with it. 
XOM's been assiduously avoiding casts since day one. I have little 
desire to reintroduce casting in the guise of function calls.

All I'm trying to do with the query method is provide a nice little 
language for quickly searching an XML document without writing a lot of 
rigid, fragile, error-prone navigation code. My assumption is 
arithmetic, logic and string operations will be done in Java, a language 
much better suited to them than XPath ever was. If there's really a 
strong desire to to do this sort of stuff in XPath, then perhaps I can 
add a nu.xom.xpath package that provides all this, and variables, and 
compiled expressions, and all the other bells and whistles everyone has 
asked for. But I still want a nice, simple, little query method in the 
Node class that doesn't have these issues.

--
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo AT metalab.unc.edu
XML in a Nutshell 3rd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian3/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596007647/cafeaulaitA/ref=nosim