[jdom-interest] Attributes as HashMap?

[Alex Chaffee]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2000 at 01:42:17PM -0700, Jason Hunter wrote:
> >   I have a general question:
> >   Is there particular reason why choose a LinkedList as attributes in
> > Element, not use a HashMap directly, even an attribute is a name-value
> > pair (as in the java.util.Map)?
> 
> As Alex said, a list is probably equivalent or better performance than a
> map until you have many attributes, and a list gives the nice benefit
> that attribute order is maintained (not required but human-friendly).
> 

Not to beat the steamy, bloated remains of a large mammal, but
attribute order is actually required for some uses, e.g. comparison
between two documents by a program that doesn't understand XML, like
diff.  I think it was Brad Morgan who wanted to use what eventually
became trimText for this very purpose.


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