NAME

XML::Grove::AsString - output content of XML objects as a string

SYNOPSIS

use XML::Grove::AsString;

$string = $xml_object->as_string OPTIONS;
$string = $element->attr_as_string $attr, OPTIONS;

$writer = new XML::Grove::AsString OPTIONS;

# OPTIONS
$writer->filter([ \&callback ]);
$writer->entity_map([ \&callback ]);
$writer->entity_map([ $mapper ]);
$writer->entity_map_options([ \%options ]);
$writer->entity_map_filter([ $bool ]);

$string = $writer->as_string($xml_object);
$writer->as_string($xml_object, $file_handle);

DESCRIPTION

Calling `as_string' on an XML object returns the character data contents of that object as a string, including all elements below that object. Calling `attr_as_string' on an element returns the contents of the named attribute as a string. Comments, processing instructions, and, by default, entities all return an empty string.

OPTIONS may either be a key-value list or a hash containing the options described below. The default options are no filtering and entities are mapped to empty strings.

OPTIONS

This list summarizes the options available for `as_string':

filter => sub to filter character data
entity_map => an object or sub to map character entities
entity_map_options => options passed to entity_map
entity_map_filter => true to use filter on mapped entities

`filter' is an anonymous sub that gets called to process character data before it is appended to the string to be returned. This can be used, for example, to escape characters that are special in output formats. `entity_map_filter' is a flag to indicate if mapped entities should be filtered after mapping. `filter' is called like this:

$string = &$filter ($character_data);

`entity_map' is an object that accepts `lookup' methods or an anonymous sub that gets called with the entity replacement text (data) and mapper options as arguments and returns the corresponding character replacements. It is called like this:

    $replacement_text = $entity_map->lookup ($entity_data,
					     $entity_map_options);

or this:

    $replacement_text = &$entity_map ($entity_data,
				      $entity_map_options);

`entity_map_options' is passed through to the `lookup' method, the type of value is defined by the entity mapping package or the anonymous sub.

EXAMPLES

Here is an example of entity mapping using the Text::EntityMap module:

    use Text::EntityMap;
    use XML::Grove::AsString;

    $html_iso_dia = Text::EntityMap->load ('ISOdia.2html');
    $html_iso_pub = Text::EntityMap->load ('ISOpub.2html');
    $html_map = Text::EntityMap->group ($html_iso_dia,
					$html_iso_pub);

    $element->as_string (entity_map => $html_map);

AUTHOR

Ken MacLeod, ken@bitsko.slc.ut.us

SEE ALSO

perl(1), XML::Parser(3), XML::Parser::Grove(3).

Extensible Markup Language (XML) <http://www.w3c.org/XML>