[jdom-interest] Still to do - Text 'merger'

[Oliver Ruebenacker]

     Hello Rolf, All,

  I think most users would be puzzled what it means to "simplify"
text. It sounds as if the text itself is affected, rather than its
representation. I would call it Element.defragmentText(). Many people
know that if you defragment a file, the content stays the same.

     Take care
     Oliver

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 12:05 AM, Rolf Lear <jdom at tuis.net> wrote:
> Hi all.
>
> I have moved this code in as the new method Element.simplifyText().
>
> https://github.com/hunterhacker/jdom/commit/d4b5c67f1df51cacf05e704e238f1d5361828233#diff-0
>
> It is a non-recursive method. I think the name is better than 'merge',
> 'join', or 'normalize'.
>
> I think the recursive means of doing it is easy enough to code
> (three-liner), so it does not add much value.
>
> I think it has enough value to be included.
>
> Unless someone can come up with better names, options, I think it will stay.
>
> Rolf
>
>
> On 03/04/2012 9:49 AM, Rolf Lear wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi all.
>>
>> I have been playing with a problem related to multiple-adjacent-text
>> content in Elements. For example:
>>
>> Element root = new Element("Root");
>> root.addContent(new Text("Hello"));
>> root.addContent(new Text(" "));
>> root.addContent(new Text("World!"));
>>
>> I think there is a useful concept of 'merging' consecutive Text items in
>> to one. The code is simple enough, and I have written it, and it works.
>> This is similar to the 'normalize' function of DOM's Node.
>>
>> The questions are:
>> 1. Should the code be part of the JDOM API? Is it useful?
>> 2. The way I have it now is as a method on Element, which, for example,
>> you call root.runTheMergeMethod() and it *recursively* scans the Element
>> (and child Elements) for consecutive Text items and merges them. Should
>> the
>> method be recursive, or should it be at the current element only. Perhaps
>> there should be two versions, one is recursive, the other is not.
>> 3. What should the methods be called?
>> 4. Should it be accessible through the JDOM Document too, or just the root
>> element?
>>
>> Ideas?
>>
>> Rolf
>>
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-- 
Oliver Ruebenacker, Computational Cell Biologist
Virtual Cell (http://vcell.org)
SBPAX: Turning Bio Knowledge into Math Models (http://www.sbpax.org)
http://www.oliver.curiousworld.org