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

[Jason Hunter]

I'd probably name it coalesceText().	

-jh-

On Apr 4, 2012, at 3:52 AM, Oliver Ruebenacker wrote:

>     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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>> 
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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
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