[jdom-interest] NoSuch*Exceptions in JDOM

[Elliotte Rusty Harold]

At 11:11 AM +0200 6/15/00, Simon Rade wrote:
>Hi!
>
>Element's methods getAttribute() and getChild() now throws
>NoSuchElementException and NoSuchAttributeException.
>Do you think this is better than returning null in such cases?
>Since it often happens that you don't know whether child or attribute
>exists and it is very awkward to handle those Exceptions.
>
>

As I was working on my presentation for XMLDevCon, I noticed that 
JDOM is inconsistent here. Some methods return null when no such item 
is found (Document.getDocType) and others throw an exception 
(Element.getAttribute, Element.getChild). A few others return empty 
strings or lists.

On Monday, and Friday, I believe the first batch are correct. On 
Tuesday, and Saturday I agree with the second. On Thursday and Friday 
I hold with the third. And on Sunday, I believe all three at once. 
But all days of the week I feel we should be consistent and pick one 
or the other.

+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo at metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
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