On 2002-04-01 Grant McLean wrote:
> NAME
>     XML::Simpler - Simpler API for handling XML
> 
> SYNOPSIS
>       use XML::Simpler;
>  
>       my $ref = XMLin($filename);
> 
>       XMLout($ref, $filename);
> 
> BACKGROUND
>     In the years since XML::Simple was released, many people have taken the
>     time to email me suggestions for how the module could be improved.
> 
>     It rapidly became apparent to me that what these people wanted could not
>     be achieved through small changes to XML::Simple (even though most
>     correspondents expressed opinions to the contrary).
> 
>     The recurring complaints were:
> 
>     *   XML::Simple does not always preserve element order
> 
>     *   When XML is written out, elements can get translated into attributes
> 
>     *   The original encoding is not maintained when the file is read
> 
>     *   The data structures returned by XMLin() are too complex
> 
>     *   There are too many options
> 
>     *   There is too much documentation
> 
>     Clearly a whole new approach was required and so XML::Simpler was
>     born...
> 
> DESCRIPTION
>     XML::Simpler offers the following improvements over XML::Simple:
> 
>     *   Element order is always preserved
> 
>     *   Elements are never translated into attributes
> 
>     *   Indentation and whitespace is preserved
> 
>     *   Absolutely no encoding translations are performed (unless the 'utf8'
>         option is enabled - see below)
> 
>     In addition to these changes, the data structures returned by XMLin()
>     have been vastly simplified. All hashrefs and arrayrefs have been
>     eliminated, and instead the contents of the XML file are represented
>     using a single scalar value which perfectly preserves the fidelity of
>     the original document. In fact the format of this data structure is so
>     intuitive that new users will be able to work with it immediately
>     without reading the documentation.
> 
>     The new data structure offers a number of exciting possibilities:
> 
>     *   The need for documents to comply with the strict (and often
>         inconvenient) syntax rules defined in the W3C XML Recommendation has
>         been relaxed.
> 
>     *   It is no longer necessary to use an encoding declaration when
>         pasting in accented characters, symbols and 'smart quotes' from MS
>         Word (in fact you can mix multiple encodings in the same file).
> 
>     *   It is also possible to embed HTML (including unbalanced or unclosed
>         tags) in your files without having to resort to CDATA sections.
> 
>     Furthermore, the new data structure and relaxed rules mean that
>     XML::Simpler is not restricted to XML data. In fact the new module works
>     equally well with INI files, CSV files and all of the 'dot file' formats
>     commonly used on Unix systems.
> 
>     In the absence of hash keys and array indexes, users will need to adopt
>     different techniques for extracting individual data values. The most
>     popular approach will likely be regular expressions but this is Perl and
>     there is always more than one way to do it, so split() and substr() are
>     likely to be popular alternatives.
> 
> METHODS
>     XML::Simple's object oriented API has been discarded in favour of the
>     simpler procedural interface. These two routines are exported by
>     default:
> 
>   XMLin(filename, option)
> 
>     For compatibility with XML::Simple, this method is named XMLin() but as
>     described above it should work with most file formats. It takes a
>     filename and returns the contents of the file represented as a single
>     scalar value (no nested hashrefs etc).
> 
>   XMLout(ref, filename)
> 
>     This method can be used to write data out to an XML (or other) format
>     file. It takes a scalar value in the format returned by XMLin() and a
>     filename. The contents of the scalar is written to the named file.
> 
> OPTIONS
>     Perhaps surprisingly, all this added flexibility comes with a vastly
>     simplified API. In fact the new API supports only one option: 'utf8'.
>     This option is disabled by default but if it is enabled, XMLin() will
>     auto-detect the encoding and convert the data to UTF-8.
> 
>     This option will not be fully implemented until Perl version 5.8 (or
>     perhaps 6.0). In the current release, enabling this option will cause
>     your data to be replaced with a pseudo-random character string of
>     approximately the same length. As many of my correspondents have pointed
>     out, UTF-8 encoded data is virtually indistinguishable from random
>     characters anyway so the current implementation should tide us over for
>     some time.
> 
> DEPENDENCIES
>     XML::Simpler does not require XML::Parser or a SAX parser. It does
>     require File::Slurp.
> 
>     The 'utf8' option requires that your system implements /dev/random,
>     however on Win32 platforms the system registry has been found to offer
>     equivalent functionality.
> 
> RELEASE HISTORY
>     Version 1.00 of XML::Simpler was released on April 1st, 2002
> 
> COPYRIGHT
>     Copyright 2002 Grant McLean <grantm@[...].org>
> 
>     This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
>     under the same terms as Perl itself.
> 
> 
Very good ! I was about 1/3 of the way through reading it when I realised what you
were up to.
(Un)fortunately the first 1/3 sounds quite plausible.

Regards,
Duncan Cameron





_______________________________________________
Perl-XML mailing list
Perl-XML@[...].com
To unsubscribe: http://listserv.ActiveState.com/mailman/mysubs