Unit Testing with REXML questions

[Peter Fitzgibbons]

Hello all,

I'm using REXML to build some XML from a rails app. I'm unit testing
the output also using REXML... and I have these questions :

Given

<a>
<b>one</b>
<c>two</c>
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>
</a>

I want to use XPath to tell me how many <d> there are under <a> ?

I want to use XPath to iterate the _names_ of the items under <d>
(Does this make sense in XML World. This one is not necessarily a
requirement, but I uncovered this need while experimenting in IRB.) ?

Thanks in advance!
Peter Fitzgibbons

 

[Jeff Wood]

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one specific <a> or all <a> tags???
But, you should be able to do:
root.elements( "/a/d" ).size
and that should return the count of ALL <d> elements under any <a> tag
root.elements( "/a[1]/d" ).size
should return the count of <d> elements under the first <a> tag ( it does
appear that the index operator in xpath is one-based not zero-based ).
Hope that helps.
j.

Hello all,

I'm using REXML to build some XML from a rails app. I'm unit testing
the output also using REXML... and I have these questions :

Given

<a>
<b>one</b>
<c>two</c>
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>
</a>

I want to use XPath to tell me how many <d> there are under <a> ?

I want to use XPath to iterate the _names_ of the items under <d>
(Does this make sense in XML World. This one is not necessarily a
requirement, but I uncovered this need while experimenting in IRB.) ?

Thanks in advance!
Peter Fitzgibbons

--
"http://ruby-lang.org -- do you ruby?"

Jeff Wood

------=_Part_16167_15320578.1129291364849--

 

[Peter Fitzgibbons]

HI Jeff,

xmltest.rb :
require 'rexml/document'

xmlin =3D <<EOD
<a>
<b>one</b>
<c>two</c>
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>
</a>
EOD

xml =3D REXML:ocument.new(xmlin)
puts xml.elements['/a/d'].size
puts xml.elements['/a/d']


output :
5
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>

xml.elements['/a/d'] returns the entire xml tree under/including /a/d

I want this to return 1 (the number of "d" elements in the list)

 

[Peter Fitzgibbons]

Ah, well I now understand...
using xml.elements[] does not return the same object as
REXML::XPath.match, which returns an array of results.

Thank you.

 

[umitanuki]

Hi Peter,

What you want is to get the array of specific nodes, isn't it??
If it's true, see code below:

xmltest.rb :
require 'rexml/document'

xmlin = <<EOD
<a>
<b>one</b>
<c>two</c>
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>
</a>
EOD

xml = REXML:ocument.new(xmlin)
puts xml.elements.to_a('/a/d')

--
then, you can iterate with the nodes of 'd', including knowing
the number of 'd' nodes with '.size' method, right??

Regards,


umitanuki

 

[Jeff Wood]

Peter,

Actually... i don't understand why you got "5" when you did size...
that was one element.

And yes, an element contains it's children ... but they aren't going
to be iterated over unless you did something like /a/d/* or something
like that.

what do you get when you run

count =3D 0 ; xml.elements( '/a/d' ).each { count +=3D 1 ) ; puts count

... of course umitanuki's to_a should also simply return an array of 1 leng=
th.

j.

Hi Peter,

What you want is to get the array of specific nodes, isn't it??
If it's true, see code below:

xmltest.rb :
require 'rexml/document'

xmlin =3D <<EOD
<a>
<b>one</b>
<c>two</c>
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>
</a>
EOD

xml =3D REXML:ocument.new(xmlin)
puts xml.elements.to_a('/a/d')

--
then, you can iterate with the nodes of 'd', including knowing
the number of 'd' nodes with '.size' method, right??

Regards,


umitanuki

HI Jeff,

xmltest.rb :
require 'rexml/document'

xmlin =3D <<EOD
<a>
<b>one</b>
<c>two</c>
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>
</a>
EOD

xml =3D REXML:ocument.new(xmlin)
puts xml.elements['/a/d'].size
puts xml.elements['/a/d']


output :
5
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>

xml.elements['/a/d'] returns the entire xml tree under/including /a/d

I want this to return 1 (the number of "d" elements in the list)

 

[umitanuki]

Hi Jeff, and Peter,

I also got "5" with this code:

xml.elements['/a/d'].size

And then I checked your code like:

xml.elements('/a/d') ,

it failed with message
" in 'elements': wrong number of arguments(1 for 0) (Argument Error) ".

Is it the difference of REXML version??
My REXML is 3.1.2.1.

Regards,


umitanuki

Peter,

Actually... i don't understand why you got "5" when you did size...
that was one element.

And yes, an element contains it's children ... but they aren't going
to be iterated over unless you did something like /a/d/* or something
like that.

what do you get when you run

count = 0 ; xml.elements( '/a/d' ).each { count += 1 ) ; puts count

... of course umitanuki's to_a should also simply return an array of 1 length.

j.

Hi Peter,

What you want is to get the array of specific nodes, isn't it??
If it's true, see code below:

xmltest.rb :
require 'rexml/document'

xmlin = <<EOD
<a>
<b>one</b>
<c>two</c>
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>
</a>
EOD

xml = REXML:ocument.new(xmlin)
puts xml.elements.to_a('/a/d')

--
then, you can iterate with the nodes of 'd', including knowing
the number of 'd' nodes with '.size' method, right??

Regards,


umitanuki

HI Jeff,

xmltest.rb :
require 'rexml/document'

xmlin = <<EOD
<a>
<b>one</b>
<c>two</c>
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>
</a>
EOD

xml = REXML:ocument.new(xmlin)
puts xml.elements['/a/d'].size
puts xml.elements['/a/d']


output :
5
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>

xml.elements['/a/d'] returns the entire xml tree under/including /a/d

I want this to return 1 (the number of "d" elements in the list)

 

[Peter Fitzgibbons]

Hi Jeff, and Peter,

I also got "5" with this code:

xml.elements['/a/d'].size

And then I checked your code like:

xml.elements('/a/d') ,

it failed with message
" in 'elements': wrong number of arguments(1 for 0) (Argument Error) ".

Is it the difference of REXML version??
My REXML is 3.1.2.1.

Regards,


umitanuki

Peter,

Actually... i don't understand why you got "5" when you did size...
that was one element.

And yes, an element contains it's children ... but they aren't going
to be iterated over unless you did something like /a/d/* or something
like that.

what do you get when you run

count =3D 0 ; xml.elements( '/a/d' ).each { count +=3D 1 ) ; puts count

... of course umitanuki's to_a should also simply return an array of 1 = length.

j.

Hi Peter,

What you want is to get the array of specific nodes, isn't it??
If it's true, see code below:

xmltest.rb :
require 'rexml/document'

xmlin =3D <<EOD
<a>
<b>one</b>
<c>two</c>
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>
</a>
EOD

xml =3D REXML:ocument.new(xmlin)
puts xml.elements.to_a('/a/d')

--
then, you can iterate with the nodes of 'd', including knowing
the number of 'd' nodes with '.size' method, right??

Regards,


umitanuki


Peter Fitzgibbons wrote:

HI Jeff,

xmltest.rb :
require 'rexml/document'

xmlin =3D <<EOD
<a>
<b>one</b>
<c>two</c>
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>
</a>
EOD

xml =3D REXML:ocument.new(xmlin)
puts xml.elements['/a/d'].size
puts xml.elements['/a/d']


output :
5
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>

xml.elements['/a/d'] returns the entire xml tree under/including /a/d

I want this to return 1 (the number of "d" elements in the list)

My code was :

puts xml.elements['/a/d'].size

in previous post.

 

[Jeff Wood]

My mistake

I meant for the param to be sent to "each"

count =3D 0
xml.elements.each( "/a/d" ) { count +=3D 1 }
puts count

j.

Hi Jeff, and Peter,

I also got "5" with this code:

xml.elements['/a/d'].size

And then I checked your code like:

xml.elements('/a/d') ,

it failed with message
" in 'elements': wrong number of arguments(1 for 0) (Argument Error) ".

Is it the difference of REXML version??
My REXML is 3.1.2.1.

Regards,


umitanuki

Peter,

Actually... i don't understand why you got "5" when you did size...
that was one element.

And yes, an element contains it's children ... but they aren't going
to be iterated over unless you did something like /a/d/* or somethin= g
like that.

what do you get when you run

count =3D 0 ; xml.elements( '/a/d' ).each { count +=3D 1 ) ; puts cou= nt

... of course umitanuki's to_a should also simply return an array of = 1 length.

j.


Hi Peter,

What you want is to get the array of specific nodes, isn't it??
If it's true, see code below:

xmltest.rb :
require 'rexml/document'

xmlin =3D <<EOD
<a>
<b>one</b>
<c>two</c>
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>
</a>
EOD

xml =3D REXML:ocument.new(xmlin)
puts xml.elements.to_a('/a/d')

--
then, you can iterate with the nodes of 'd', including knowing
the number of 'd' nodes with '.size' method, right??

Regards,


umitanuki


Peter Fitzgibbons wrote:

HI Jeff,

xmltest.rb :
require 'rexml/document'

xmlin =3D <<EOD
<a>
<b>one</b>
<c>two</c>
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>
</a>
EOD

xml =3D REXML:ocument.new(xmlin)
puts xml.elements['/a/d'].size
puts xml.elements['/a/d']


output :
5
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>

xml.elements['/a/d'] returns the entire xml tree under/including /a/= d

I want this to return 1 (the number of "d" elements in the list)

My code was :

puts xml.elements['/a/d'].size

in previous post.

 

[umitanuki]

I didn't know such a code but it's seemed so useful.
Tanks,


umitanuki

My mistake

I meant for the param to be sent to "each"

count = 0
xml.elements.each( "/a/d" ) { count += 1 }
puts count

j.

Hi Jeff, and Peter,

I also got "5" with this code:

xml.elements['/a/d'].size

And then I checked your code like:

xml.elements('/a/d') ,

it failed with message
" in 'elements': wrong number of arguments(1 for 0) (Argument Error) ".

Is it the difference of REXML version??
My REXML is 3.1.2.1.

Regards,


umitanuki


Jeff Wood wrote:

Peter,

Actually... i don't understand why you got "5" when you did size...
that was one element.

And yes, an element contains it's children ... but they aren't going
to be iterated over unless you did something like /a/d/* or something
like that.

what do you get when you run

count = 0 ; xml.elements( '/a/d' ).each { count += 1 ) ; puts count

... of course umitanuki's to_a should also simply return an array of 1 length.

j.



Hi Peter,

What you want is to get the array of specific nodes, isn't it??
If it's true, see code below:

xmltest.rb :
require 'rexml/document'

xmlin = <<EOD
<a>
<b>one</b>
<c>two</c>
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>
</a>
EOD

xml = REXML:ocument.new(xmlin)
puts xml.elements.to_a('/a/d')

--
then, you can iterate with the nodes of 'd', including knowing
the number of 'd' nodes with '.size' method, right??

Regards,


umitanuki


Peter Fitzgibbons wrote:


HI Jeff,

xmltest.rb :
require 'rexml/document'

xmlin = <<EOD
<a>
<b>one</b>
<c>two</c>
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>
</a>
EOD

xml = REXML:ocument.new(xmlin)
puts xml.elements['/a/d'].size
puts xml.elements['/a/d']


output :
5
<d>
<e>three</e>
<f>four</f>
</d>

xml.elements['/a/d'] returns the entire xml tree under/including /a/d

I want this to return 1 (the number of "d" elements in the list)

My code was :

puts xml.elements['/a/d'].size

in previous post.

 

[Gavin Kistner]

count = 0 ; xml.elements( '/a/d' ).each { count += 1 ) ; puts count

Because the each method returns the collection, you can actually just
do this (odd-looking) hack:
puts xml.elements.each('/a/d'){}.size

(The block is required, but may be empty.)

 

[Jeff Wood]

true.

Because the each method returns the collection, you can actually just
do this (odd-looking) hack:
puts xml.elements.each('/a/d'){}.size

(The block is required, but may be empty.)