[libxml-devel] << operator

[Sean Chittenden]

>> node = XML::Node.new('foo') << XML::Node.new('bar') << "bars  
>> contents"
>> puts node.parent.parent
>> <foo>
>>  <bar>bars contents</bar>
>> <foo>
>
> FYI - one downside of returning the appended object as opposed to  
> self is that the variable node above is the "bar contents" node.   
> Thus you have to write:
>
> puts node.parent.parent.
>
> I find that surprising.  It would be nice if node was the top node.
>
> Thus in the example it would be nice for << to return the child  
> object in some cases and self in others.  Sigh.
>
> Anyone see a way of getting the best of both worlds?


<< should operate on the contents of a node, IMHO.

So:

node1 = XML::Node.new('foo')
node1 << 'bar'

would produce '<foo>bar</foo>' and not '<foo/>bar'.  However:

node2 = XML::Node.new('bar')
node1 << node2

should produce '<foo><bar/></foo>'.

If the argument to << is a string, append to the xmlNode->content via  
xmlNodeAddContent(3).  If, however, the argument is an XML::Node, then  
use xmlAddChild(3) to add an xmlNode->child node.


+ and << should behave differently:

'node1 + node2' should produce '<foo/><bar/>'

I didn't spend a lot of time on the operators when writing this, but I  
feel pretty strongly that there should be such a distinction and it  
should behave differently based on the argument's data type (not that  
I'm actively using the lib atm, but...).  That a useful suggestion?  -sc


--
Sean Chittenden
sean at chittenden.org