JHierarchyXML

• Simplified XML reader, writer, and data structure.
• Designed for working with purely hierarchical data.
• Exactly preserves data written in it. When reading outside xml, ignores whitespace used for formatting.

Data

• Unlike normal HTML, the textual data of every element and property may be made up of only pure text.
• Elements may store children, but not as part of their textual content.

Searching

• To easily navigate the XML tree structure, you use objects called Filters which are passed to the getChildren()/getProperty() functions.
• Filters may be combined, and there are filters for looking at the child elements/properties.
• These filters can take their own filters, recursivly.

Getting a child element with name "Factor" and value "32"

XMLElement rootElement = doc.getRootElement();
XMLElement child = rootElement
    .getChild(
      new NameFilter("Factor"),
      new ValueFilter("32")
    );

Getting a child element with the name "Factor" and the Property type="basic"

XMLElement rootElement = doc.getRootElement();
XMLElement child = rootElement
    .getChild(
      new NameFilter("Factor"),
      new HasPropertyFilter(
        new NameFilter("type"),
        new ValueFilter("basic")
      )
    );

Null Elements

• Because JHierarchyXML is designed for the shortest possible code, asking for a child which does not exist will return a special case element or property.
• This special case has null for its name and value.
• Asking for children/properties will return an empty list
• Since it has no children, asking for a child/property will return the special case again.
• As a result, you will always avoid NullPointerExceptions.
• To see if the element/property actually exists, use the exists() function.

See if the root has a child named "Factor"

XMLElement rootElement = doc.getRootElement();
boolean exists = rootElement
  .getChild(
    new NameFilter("Factor")
  ).exists();

Whitespace policy

• I have to write this still. After I've done the unit tests, this will be updated.

Changelog

• 2.1
  • New
    • You can write comments by adding them to XMLElements. They will not be read.