Hi everyone,
I've just spent the last few hours learning how to use the DOM XML API (to be more precise, the one that's in PyXML), instead of revising for my exams :p. My conclusion so far: it sucks (and so does SAX because I can't see a way to use it for OOP or "recursive" XML trees).
I'm certain it can be used to do extremely powerful stuff, but as far as usability is concerned, it's ridiculously verbose and naming is inconsistent. I've had a look at Java DOM as well, and it's apparently the same.
I share your opinion that DOM is a pita. It's the same in Java because it is a 'language-neutral' spec - i.e. it sucks equally in every language :-)
For Python, take a look at ElementTree, it is way easier to use. Amara looks interesting too. http://effbot.org/zone/element-index.htm http://uche.ogbuji.net/uche.ogbuji.net/tech/4Suite/amara/
For Java, try dom4j. http://www.dom4j.org
Many people have tried to make more Pythonic XML libraries, you might want to look around before you write your own.
Kent
This afternoon, I read a bit about YAML and its basic philosophy that everything can be represented as a mix of lists, dictionaries and scalars. Now, setting aside the fact that one look at YAML made me want to ditch XML for data storage purposes completely (which I can't do since there's no Java YAML parser that I know of so far), it came to my mind once again that this is the one thing I want to be able to do in XML. Chances are that's all what 9 out of 10 programmers want to do with XML.
In fact, I find it appalling that none of the "standard" XML parsers (DOM, SAX) provides an easy way to do that (yeah, I know that's what more or less what the shelve module does, but I want a language-independent way).
So, to wrap my head around DOM, I set out to write a little script that does just that. Introducing xmldict.py and the DataNode class.
For example, given the following XML file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<character> <attribute key="BOD"> <name>Body</name> <rating>6</rating> </attribute> <attribute key="QCK"> <name>Quickness</name> <rating>9</rating> </attribute> </character>
...the DataNode class (yeah, I think I may have implemented that in a slightly bizarre fashion) will produce the following dictionary:
{u'attribute': [{u'@key': u'BOD', u'name': u'Body', u'rating': u'6'}, {u'@key': u'QCK', u'name': u'Quickness', u'rating': u'9'}]}
As you can see, everything is represented in a mix of dictionaries, lists and unicode strings, and can now be used by a normal human being to write a program that uses this data.
Comments, criticism, improvements, suggestions, [whatever]... Would be appreciated. Feel free to use it if you wish.
Thanks for your attention.
-- Max
maxnoel_fr at yahoo dot fr -- ICQ #85274019
"Look at you hacker... A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors... How can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?"
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