# REXML::Document (Class)

In: | rexml/document.rb
Parent: | Element

Represents a full XML document, including PIs, a doctype, etc. A Document has a single child that can be accessed by root(). Note that if you want to have an XML declaration written for a document you create, you must add one; REXML documents do not write a default declaration for you. See |DECLARATION| and |write|.

## Methods

<< add add_element clone doctype encoding expanded_name name new node_type parse_stream root stand_alone? version write xml_decl

## Constants

DECLARATION | = | XMLDecl.default
| A convenient default XML declaration. If you want an XML declaration, the easiest way to add one is mydoc << Document::DECLARATION `DEPRECATED` Use: mydoc << XMLDecl.default

## Public Class methods

new( source = nil, context = {} )

Constructor @param source if supplied, must be a Document, String, or IO. Documents have their context and Element attributes cloned. Strings are expected to be valid XML documents. IOs are expected to be sources of valid XML documents. @param context if supplied, contains the context of the document; this should be a Hash. NOTE that I’m not sure what the context is for; I cloned it out of the Electric XML API (in which it also seems to do nothing), and it is now legacy. It may do something, someday… it may disappear.

[Source]

    # File rexml/document.rb, line 36
                    def initialize( source = nil, context = {} )
                            super()
                            @context = context
                            return if source.nil?
                            if source.kind_of? Document
                                    @context = source.context
                                    super source
                            else
                                    build(  source )
                            end
                    end

parse_stream( source, listener )

[Source]

    # File rexml/document.rb, line 165
                    def Document::parse_stream( source, listener )
                            Parsers::StreamParser.new( source, listener ).parse
                    end

## Public Instance methods

node_type()

[Source]

    # File rexml/document.rb, line 48
        def node_type
          :document
        end

clone()

Should be obvious

[Source]

    # File rexml/document.rb, line 53
                    def clone
                            Document.new self
                    end

expanded_name()

According to the XML spec, a root node has no expanded name

[Source]

    # File rexml/document.rb, line 58
                    def expanded_name
                            ''
                            #d = doc_type

                            #d ? d.name : "UNDEFINED"

                    end

name()

Alias for expanded_name

add( child )

We override this, because XMLDecls and DocTypes must go at the start of the document

[Source]

    # File rexml/document.rb, line 68
                    def add( child )
                            if child.kind_of? XMLDecl
                                    @children.unshift child
                            elsif child.kind_of? DocType
                                    if @children[0].kind_of? XMLDecl
                                            @children[1,0] = child
                                    else
                                            @children.unshift child
                                    end
                                    child.parent = self
                            else
                                    rv = super
                                    raise "attempted adding second root element to document" if @elements.size > 1
                                    rv
                            end
                    end

<<( child )

Alias for add

add_element(arg=nil, arg2=nil)

[Source]

    # File rexml/document.rb, line 86
                    def add_element(arg=nil, arg2=nil)
                            rv = super
                            raise "attempted adding second root element to document" if @elements.size > 1
                            rv
                    end

root()

@return the root Element of the document, or nil if this document has no children.

[Source]

    # File rexml/document.rb, line 94
                    def root
                            @children.find { |item| item.kind_of? Element }
                    end

doctype()

@return the DocType child of the document, if one exists, and nil otherwise.

[Source]

    # File rexml/document.rb, line 100
                    def doctype
                            @children.find { |item| item.kind_of? DocType }
                    end

xml_decl()

@return the XMLDecl of this document; if no XMLDecl has been set, the default declaration is returned.

[Source]

    # File rexml/document.rb, line 106
                    def xml_decl
                            rv = @children[0]
          return rv if rv.kind_of? XMLDecl
          rv = @children.unshift(XMLDecl.default)[0]
                    end

version()

@return the XMLDecl version of this document as a String. If no XMLDecl has been set, returns the default version.

[Source]

    # File rexml/document.rb, line 114
                    def version
                            xml_decl().version
                    end

encoding()

@return the XMLDecl encoding of this document as a String. If no XMLDecl has been set, returns the default encoding.

[Source]

    # File rexml/document.rb, line 120
                    def encoding
                            xml_decl().encoding
                    end

stand_alone?()

@return the XMLDecl standalone value of this document as a String. If no XMLDecl has been set, returns the default setting.

[Source]

    # File rexml/document.rb, line 126
                    def stand_alone?
                            xml_decl().stand_alone?
                    end

write( output=$stdout, indent=-1, transitive=false, ie_hack=false )

Write the XML tree out, optionally with indent. This writes out the entire XML document, including XML declarations, doctype declarations, and processing instructions (if any are given). A controversial point is whether Document should always write the XML declaration (<?xml version=’1.0’?>) whether or not one is given by the user (or source document). REXML does not write one if one was not specified, because it adds unneccessary bandwidth to applications such as XML-RPC.

output: | output an object which supports ’<< string’; this is where the

      document will be written.

indent: | An integer. If -1, no indenting will be used; otherwise, the indentation will be this number of spaces, and children will be indented an additional amount. Defaults to -1
transitive: | What the heck does this do? Defaults to false
ie_hack: | Internet Explorer is the worst piece of crap to have ever been written, with the possible exception of Windows itself. Since IE is unable to parse proper XML, we have to provide a hack to generate XML that IE’s limited abilities can handle. This hack inserts a space before the /> on empty tags. Defaults to false

[Source]

    # File rexml/document.rb, line 155
                    def write( output=$stdout, indent=-1, transitive=false, ie_hack=false )
                            output = Output.new( output, xml_decl.encoding ) if xml_decl.encoding != "UTF-8" && !output.kind_of?(Output)
                            @children.each { |node|
                                    indent( output, indent) if node.node_type == :element
                                    node.write( output, indent, transitive, ie_hack )
                                    output << "\n" unless indent<0 or node == @children[-1]
                            }
                    end

[Validate]