Links: Next Previous Up Top

What do I do with an SGMLS_Element?

Altogether, there are six classes in SGMLS.pm, each with its own methods: in addition to SGMLS (for the parse) and SGMLS_Event (for a specific event), the classes are SGMLS_Element, SGMLS_Attribute, SGMLS_Entity, and SGMLS_Notation. Like all of these, SGMLS_Element has a number of methods available for obtaining different types of information. For example, if you were to use

my $element = $event->data

to retrieve the data for a 'start_element' or 'end_element' event, then you could use the methods listed in table 3 to find more information about the element.

Table 3: The SGMLS_Element class


Method
name
Return Type
string
Description
The name (or GI), in upper-case.

Method
parent
Return Type
SGMLS_Element
Description
The parent element, or '' if this is the top element.

Method
attributes
Return Type
HASH
Description
Return a reference to a hash table of SGMLS_Attribute objects, keyed by the attribute names (in upper-case).

Method
attribute_names
Return Type
ARRAY
Description
A list of all attribute names for the current element (in upper-case).

Method
attribute(aname)
Return Type
SGMLS_Attribute
Description
Return the attribute named ANAME.

Method
set_attribute(attribute)
Return Type
[none]
Description
The attribute argument should be an object belonging to the SGMLS_Attribute class. Add it to the element, replacing any previous attribute with the same name.

Method
in(name)
Return Type
SGMLS_Element
Description
If the current element's parent is named name, return the parent; otherwise, return ''.

Method
within(name)
Return Type
SGMLS_Element
Description
If any ancestor of the current element is named name, return it; otherwise, return ''.

Links: Next Previous Up Top

David Megginson <dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca>