Re: PROPOSAL (round 2): Extensions to MDR XMI API

Hi Brian,

Brian Smith wrote:
> Okay, you said you are likely to get rid of OutputTarget. But I am still 
> wondering about what getObjects() is for. Why did you want getObjects() 
> to be a property, instead of a parameter to the write() method like was 
> done for JMI? I can kind of understand the XMI version being a property, 
> but I wonder if the benefit is worth being inconsistent with JMI. It 
> seems like you could make the write methods like this:
> 
> void write(org.xml.sax.ContentHandler handler, Collection objects,
>           String xmiVersion);
> void write(org.xml.sax.ContentHandler handler, RefPackage extent,
>            String xmiVersion);
> 
> This would make the MDR API very similar to the JMI XmiWriter API. And 
> also, I can better see how I could reuse an XMIWriter instance to write 
> multiple documents with different collections of objects. Also, it seems 
> like XMIWriters could then implement XmiWriter too. Similar comments 
> apply to XMIReader.

For XMIReader it is needed to have extent as a property, for the case 
when you want to use it as ContentHandler. I used the same approach 
automatically also in the XMIWriter to keep them consistent.
I agree that it would be probably more appropriate to make it a 
parameter rather than a property for XMIWriter. That multiplies number 
of write methods in XMIWriter by 2.
Martin