[jdom-interest] Feature request: Default values for getters

[Matt Sanchez]

I would gladly do the leg work for this one if it was going to be made
official.  I'll take a look at the source for Element and Attribute.  How
easy is it to distinguish between empty Elements/Attributes and non-existent
Elements/Attributes.  If this can not be done effectively, then default
values may be hard to implement.

Matt B. Sanchez
Software Engineer
Liaison Technology
msanchez at liaison.com
512.345.0020 ext 196
512.659.8265 mobile

> Powering the e-Catalog content connection
www.liaison.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Hunter [mailto:jhunter at acm.org]
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 4:36 PM
To: Matt Sanchez
Cc: 'jdom-interest at jdom.org'
Subject: Re: [jdom-interest] Feature request: Default values for getters


Personally I like the idea, and in fact we had default attrib getters in
the past.  But they were removed so that the API might be simpler and
not "mask errors".  To argue that side for a minute, the utility method
you show is trivial and if we made it official we'd have to add three
new methods for each of getText(), getTextTrim(), and
getTextNormalize().  I'm easy either way.

-jh-

Matt Sanchez wrote:
> 
> As a new user to JDOM, I must admit I am very impressed and pleased to see
> such an intuitive interface for XML access.  One thing I have noticed is
> that the Element.getText() and Attribute.getXXXValue() methods do not have
> versions that allow for default values to be passed in.
> 
> For example, it would be nice to be able to do the following:
> 
> Element root = doc.getRootElement();
> String s = root.getChild("foo").getText("default value");
> 
> Element.getText(String default) could be implemented as follows:
> 
> public String getText(String default)
> {
>     String retVal = getText();
> 
>     if (retVal.equals(""))
>         return default;
> 
>     return retVal;
> }
> 
> Likewise, all the Attribute.getXXXValue() methods could be implemented in
a
> similar fashion.  I am sure this issue has been brought up before, so
please
> excuse my ignorance.  Thanks.
> 
> Matt B. Sanchez
> Software Engineer
> Liaison Technology
> msanchez at liaison.com
> 
> > Powering the e-Catalog content connection
> www.liaison.com
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