NAME

XML::Easy - XML processing with a clean interface

SYNOPSIS

use XML::Easy::NodeBasics qw(xml_element xml_e_attribute);
use XML::Easy::Text
	qw(xml10_read_document xml10_write_document);

$element = xml_element("a", { href => "there" }, "there");
$element = xml10_read_document('<a href="there">there</a>');

$href = xml_e_attribute($element, "href");
$text = xml10_write_document($element);

# see specific modules for many more functions

DESCRIPTION

XML::Easy is a collection of modules relating to the processing, parsing, and serialisation of XML data. It is oriented towards the use of XML to represent data for interchange purposes, rather than the use of XML as markup of principally textual data. It does not perform any schema processing, and does not interpret DTDs or any other kind of schema. It adheres strictly to the XML specification, in all its awkward details, except for the aforementioned DTDs.

XML::Easy strictly separates the in-program manipulation of XML data from the processing of the textual form of XML. This shields the XML user from the inconvenient and obscure aspects of XML syntax. XML data nodes are mainly processed in a clean functional style, using the XML::Easy::NodeBasics module. In the (very likely) event that an application requires some more purpose-specific XML data processing facilities, they are readily built on top of XML::Easy::NodeBasics, retaining the abstraction from textual XML.

When XML must be handled in textual form, for input and output, the XML::Easy::Text module supplies a parser and a serialiser. The interfaces here, too, are functional in nature.

There are other modules for some ancillary aspects of XML processing.

MODULES

The modules in the XML::Easy distribution are:

XML::Easy

This document. For historical reasons, this can also be loaded as a module, and (though it is deprecated) some of the functions from XML::Easy::Text can be imported from here.

XML::Easy::Classify

This module provides various type-testing functions, relating to data types used in the XML::Easy ensemble. These are mainly intended to be used to enforce validity of data being processed by XML-related functions.

XML::Easy::Content

XML::Easy::Element

These are classes used to represent XML data for general manipulation. Objects of these classes hold the meaningful content of the data, independent of textual representation. The data in these nodes cannot be modified: different data requires new nodes.

XML::Easy::NodeBasics

This module supplies functions concerned with the creation, examination, and other manipulation of XML data nodes (content chunks and elements). The nodes are dumb data objects, best manipulated using plain functions such as the ones in this module.

XML::Easy::Syntax

This module supplies Perl regular expressions describing the grammar of XML 1.0. This is intended to support doing irregular things with XML, rather than for normal parsing.

XML::Easy::Text

This module supplies functions that parse and serialise XML data as text according to the XML 1.0 specification.

OTHER DISTRIBUTIONS

Other CPAN distributions that work with XML::Easy are:

Test::XML::Easy

A testing tool, providing Test::More-style functions that check whether XML nodes are as expected.

XML::Easy::ProceduralWriter

Provides a way to construct XML data nodes by procedural code. Some programmers will find this more comfortable than the functional style offered by XML::Easy::NodeBasics.

XML::Easy::SimpleSchemaUtil

Helps to parse things that are encoded in XML in common ways.

XML::Easy::Transform::

This namespace exists to contain modules that perform transformations on XML documents, or parts thereof, in the form of XML::Easy::Element and XML::Easy::Content nodes.

SEE ALSO

XML::Easy::Classify, XML::Easy::NodeBasics, XML::Easy::Syntax, XML::Easy::Text, http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/

AUTHOR

Andrew Main (Zefram) <zefram@fysh.org>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2008, 2009 PhotoBox Ltd

Copyright (C) 2009, 2010, 2011, 2017 Andrew Main (Zefram) <zefram@fysh.org>

LICENSE

This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.