class Element

Extends Parent
Includes Namespace
Represents a tagged XML element. Elements are characterized by having children, attributes, and names, and can themselves be children.

Attributes

Methods


Attributes

attributes (reader) Mechanisms for accessing attributes and child elements of this element.
elements (reader) Mechanisms for accessing attributes and child elements of this element.

Methods

add_attribute

Arguments

key
can be either an Attribute or a String. If an Attribute, the attribute is added to the list of Element attributes. If String, the argument is used as the name of the new attribute, and the value parameter must be supplied.
value<nil>
not required, and is ignored if the first argument is an Attribute. Otherwise, this is a String, and is used as the value of the new Attribute.
Returns the Attribute added
Adds an attribute to this element, overwriting any existing attribute by the same name.

add_element

Arguments

element<nil>
optional. If Element, the element is added. Otherwise, a new Element is constructed with the argument (see Element.initialize).
attrs<nil>
If supplied, must be a hash of String name,value pairs, which will be used to set the attributes of the new Element.
Returns the Element that was added
Adds a child to this element, optionally setting attributes in the element.

add_namespace

Arguments

prefix
the namespace. If the second argument is not supplied, this should be the URI of the default namespace.
uri<nil>

Adds a namespace to this element

add_text

Arguments

text
if a String, a new Text instance is created and added to the parent. If Text, the object is added directly.
Returns self. NOTE that contrary to most REXML methods, the object added to the parent is not returned.
A helper method to add a Text child. Actual Text instances can be added with regular Parent methods, such as add() and <<()

clone


delete_attribute

Arguments

key
either an Attribute or a String. In either case, the attribute is found by matching the attribute name to the argument, and then removed. If no attribute is found, no action is taken.
Returns the attribute removed, or nil if this Element did not contain a matching attribute
Removes an attribute

delete_element

Arguments

element
Must be an Element, String, or Integer. If Element, the element is removed. If String, the element is found (via XPath) and removed. NOTE that this means that any parent can remove any descendant. If Integer, the Element indexed by that number will be removed.
Returns the element that was removed.
Deletes a child element.

delete_namespace

Arguments

namespace<xmlns>

NEEDS DOCUMENTATION

each_element

Arguments

xpath<nil>
block

Synonym for elements.each

each_element_with_attribute

Arguments

key
the name of the attribute to search for
value
the value of the attribute
max<0>
(optional) causes this method to return after yielding for this number of matching children
name<nil>
(optional) if supplied, this is an XPath that filters the children to check.
block

Iterates through the children, yielding for each Element that has a particular attribute set.

each_element_with_text

Arguments

text
max<0>
(optional) causes this method to return after yielding for this number of matching children
name<nil>
(optional) if supplied, this is an XPath that filters the children to check.
block

Iterates through the children, yielding for each Element that has a particular text set. @see text

each_with_something

Arguments

test
max<0>
name<nil>

A private helper method

Element

Arguments

parse_stream source
listener

get_elements

Arguments

xpath
any XPath by which to search for elements in the tree
Returns an array of Elements that match the supplied path
This is a little slower than calling elements.each directly.

get_text

Arguments

path<nil>
Returns the first Text child encountered.
This is the same method as text(), only this method returns the actual Text object, rather than the String content.

has_attributes

Returns true if this element has any attributes set, false otherwise.

has_elements

Returns true if this element has at least one child Element

has_text

Returns true if this element has at least one Text child

initialize

Arguments

arg<UNDEFINED>
if not supplied, will be set to the default value. If a String, the name of this object will be set to the argument. If an Element, the object will be shallowly cloned; name, attributes, and namespaces will be copied. If a Source, the source will be scanned and parsed for an Element, and all child elements will be recursively parsed as well.
parent<nil>
if supplied, must be a Parent, and will be used as the parent of this object.

Constructor

namespace

Arguments

prefix<nil>
Returns the URI for a namespace, or the empty string if no such namespace is declared

next_element


Returns the next sibling that is an element, or nil if there is no Element sibling after this one

parse

Arguments

source

parse_children

Arguments

source

A private helper method

parse_error

Arguments

source
message<nil>

prefixes

Returns an Array of all defined namespaces

previous_element


Returns the previous sibling that is an element, or nil if there is no Element sibling prior to this one

root

Returns the root of the document that this element belongs to. If this element doesn't belong to a document, but does belong to another Element, the parent's root will be returned, until the earliest ancestor is found.

text

Arguments

path<nil>
Returns the String content of the first child text element encountered.
A convenience method which returns the first child text element. NOTE that an element may have multiple Text elements, perhaps separated by other children; consider: "<p>some text <b>this is bold!</b> more text<p>" The element <p> has two text elements, "some text " and " more text". This method would return only the first, "some text ".

text=

Arguments

text
If a String, a new Text child is created and added to this Element as the first Text child. If Text, the text is set as the first Child element. If nil, then any existing first Text child is removed.
Returns self. NOTE that contrary to most REXML methods, the replaced content is not returned.
Sets the first Text child of this object. See text() for a discussion about Text children. If a Text child already exists, the child is replaced by this content. This means that Text content can be deleted by calling this method with a nil argument. In this case, the next Text child becomes the first Text child. In no case is the order of any siblings disturbed.

write

Arguments

writer
A String or IO (or any object supporting <<(String))
indent<0>
if supplied, must be an Integer, which is then used to determine the indentation of this element and its children.

Writes out this element, and recursively, all children.

write_children

Arguments

writer
indent

A private helper method