XML::Parser

[ivey]

Does anyone have experience with XML::Parser? I have a little chunk of xml that looks like this:

<part name="foo">
   <part name="bar"/>
   <part name="bar2"/>
</part>

and what i want to do is use this to initialize some objects:

my $foo = new Part(name => "foo");
$foo->addPart("bar",new Part(name => "bar"));
$foo->addPart("bar2",new Part(name => "bar2"));
$foo->startSystem;

I'm having some trouble with the Handlers to make that happen...so much so that I don't even have something that sorta works. I can't seem to get my head around it. Any suggestions?

[Adam]

I'm wondering about your example.
Your code snipit:

<part name="foo">
   <part name="bar"/>
   <part name="bar2"/>
</part>

is not valid xml. I know its psuedo-code, but it makes the sol'n confusing. Perhaps you meant:

<section name="foo">
   <subsection name="bar">
   <subsection name="baz">
</section>

Or something like that? Then you want

my $foo = new section( name => "foo" ;
$foo->addSubsection( "bar" );
$foo->addSubsection( "baz" );
$foo->startSystem;

???

[ivey]

well...no. the difference is that i don't want to define a name for each level...there may be many levels. so, i might have

<section name="top">
  <section name="chap1"/>
  <section name="chap2">
    <section name="sub1"/>
  </section>
  <section name="chap3"/>
  <section name="chap4">
    <section name="sub2">
      <section name="table1"/>
    </section>
  </section>
</section>

my problem is, in the Handlers definition, how keep a relationship between my "current root section" (ie, the one to which i will be adding the next subsection) and the xml level?

--
michael d. ivey, [e-mail]

[btrott]

You can keep a stack of the current level where you are in the XML file. When you get a start tag, push the tag onto the stack; when you get to the end of that tag, pop the tag off the stack. You can use this to define a tree structure of sorts.

Another option would be to use the "Tree" Style of XML::Parser. Read the docs for that.

A final option, and a good one, is to use XML::Simple, which may work for you:

    use XML::Simple;
    XMLin("foo.xml");

It loads the data into a tree structure, which may or may not work exactly how you want it.

Or (finally again) you could look into some of the other tree-processing XML modules, like XML::DOM and XML::Twig. They may be overkill for your purposes, though.

[Adam]

I didn't know you could do that. I've not done much with XML.