Re: dom creation

[ replied to php-xml-dev ]

On Fri, 2003-04-11 at 14:40, Rob Richards wrote:
> Here is a question.
> 
> How should we handle the creation of the DOM?

I was asking this myself as well...
> 
> Currently there are xmldoc and xmldocfile. 

domxml_open_mem() and domxml_open_file() are the current recommended
function names in userland. But I'm not very happy with them, either.

> Should these be left as is, or
> should we start looking at DOMImplementation and possibly DOMBuilder (level
> 3) which would create a document, etc... Then going along that route,

The problem with DOM level 2
(http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Core-20001113/core.html) is,
that there's no definition how to read files/string and serialize them.
This is were Level 3 on the other hand has the "Load and Save"
Specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-DOM-Level-3-LS-20030226/)
for this. Therefore I think, it would be wise to use some of the
proposed methods there. But maybe this is could lead to
implementation-overkill as well..

loading a file would then be

$domdocument = dombuilder:parse_uri($filename);

which is ok. But reading from a string seems to be quite complicated:

$domdocument = dombuilder:parse($dominputsource);

where $dominputsource is another class with characterStreams and alike.
I think for parsing xml from strings, we could just do it with

$domdocument = dombuilder:parse_string($xmlstring);

even if it's not in the domstandard.. the DOMWriter Interface seems to
be a little bit complicated as well...

But, just saw "Convenience Interfaces"
(http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-DOM-Level-3-LS-20030226/)

$domdocument = domimplementation:create_document()
$domdocument->load($uri);
$domdocument->loadXML($string);
$serialized = $domdocument->saveXML();

looks exactly like what we need for the time being. Maybe
->saveXMLtoFile as another method.

>  if
> looking at DOMImplementation/DOMBuilder should we start looking at useing
> streams? (Which I am not sure where streams are regarding stability at this
> point).

Streams would be nice, but not of importance for me for the 5.0.0
release.

> I am thinking for the immediate, to just implement xmldoc and/or xmldoc file
> so that work can get started on the underlying pieces and then trying to
> switch over to other methods possibly. But I dont want to start off with
> something that is going to kick us in the ass further down the road.

I think the "DOM Convenience Methods" are just ok.

> When this new extension is completly implemented, BC is definitely going out
> the window without a some type of wrapper.

I don't have a problem with that ;)

On another Area:

DOM Standard reports errors with Exceptions. PHP5 does support
exceptions, but, IIRC, it is not recommended to throw Exceptions from
extensions. Are there any opinions about this?

chregu


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