Posted By

tommorris on 06/16/08

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xml

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Last Edited at 06/16/08 09:30pm

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REXML Language Identification monkey patch

/ Published in: Ruby

REXML does not seem to have a 'lang' method, which is strange since lang is in the XML 1.0 Specification Â§2.12 'Language Identification', and in many other libraries. Because of Ruby's 'monkey patching', it's pretty easy to add - you just recursively browse the ancestors. Alas, because attributes are stored internally as strings and not an Attribute object, there does not seem to be any way of monkey patching Â§2.12 support on to REXML's attribute handling.

One day, Ruby will have a really good XML parser - speedy as a SAX and fully DOMinanting over the vagaries of namespaces etc.

Enclosed is an RSpec test that demonstrates usage.

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require 'rexml/document'
 
class REXML::Element
 
  public
  def lang
    if self.attributes['xml:lang']
      return self.attributes['xml:lang'].to_s
    elsif self.parent != nil
      return self.parent.lang
    else
      return nil
    end
  end
 
end
 
describe "XML library" do
  it "should handle xml:lang inheritance properly" do
    xmldoc = <<-EOF;
    <?xml version="1.0" ?>
    <foo xml:lang="en">
      <bar>Hello World!</bar>
    </foo>
    EOF
 
    xml = REXML::Document.new(xmldoc)
    xml.elements[1].elements[1].lang.should == "en"
 
    xmldoc2 = <<-EOF;
    <?xml version="1.0" ?>
    <foo>
      <bar>Hello World!</bar>
    </foo>
    EOF
 
    xml2 = REXML::Document.new(xmldoc2)
    xml2.elements[1].elements[1].lang.should_not == "en"
    xml2.elements[1].elements[1].lang.should == nil
 
    xmldoc3 = <<-EOF;
    <?xml version="1.0" ?>
    <foo>
      <bar xml:lang="en">Hello World!</bar>
    </foo>
    EOF
 
    xml3 = REXML::Document.new(xmldoc3)
    xml3.elements[1].elements[1].lang.should == "en"
  end
end