NAME

XML::Merge - flexibly merge (&& tidy) XML documents

VERSION

This documentation refers to version 1.0.4C2Nf0R of XML::Merge, which was released on Thu Dec 2 23:41:00:27 2004.

SYNOPSIS

  use XML::Merge;

  # create new       XML::Merge object from         MainFile.xml
  my $main_xml_doc = XML::Merge->new('filename' => 'MainFile.xml');
  # Merge File2Add.xml                 into         MainFile.xml
     $main_xml_doc->merge(           'filename' => 'File2Add.xml');
  # Tidy up the indenting on the merged data
     $main_xml_doc->tidy();
  # Write out changes back to MainFile.xml
     $main_xml_doc->write();

DESCRIPTION

This module utilizes underlying parsed XML::XPath objects to merge separate XML documents according to certain rules && configurable options. If both documents have root nodes which are elements of the same name, the documents are merged directly. Otherwise, one is merged as a child of the other. An optional XPath location can be specified as the place to perform the merge. If no location is specified, the merge is attempted at the first matching element or is appended as the new last child of the other root if no match is found.

This module also contains some utilities for stripping or tidying up indenting levels of contained text nodes. This comes in handy because merging documents usually results in the ruination of indentation.

2DO

- mk namespaces && attz stay in order after tidy() or merge()

- fix reload() from messing up unicode escaped &XYZ; components like Copyright © -> © && Registered ® -> ®

- mk _idea take XPath locations instead of elem name keys

- mk good accessors for _idea

- mk txt apnd optn

- handle comment joins && stamping && options

- support modification-time _cres

- fix 03keep.t to pass && pkg

- add _ignr ignore list of merg xplc's to not merge (pre-prune())

- support _idea options where several attz together are single id

- What else does Merge need?

USAGE

new()

This is the standard Merge object constructor. It can take parameters like an XML::XPath object constructor to initialize the primary XML document object (the object which subsequent XML documents will be merged into). These options can be any one of:

  'filename' => 'SomeFile.xml'
  'xml'      => $variable_which_holds_a_bunch_of_XML_data
  'ioref'    => $file_InputOutput_reference
  'context'  => $existing_node_at_specified_context_to_become_new_obj

Merge's new() can also accept merge-option parameters to override the default merge behavior. These include:

  'conflict_resolution_method' => 'main' # main  file wins
  'conflict_resolution_method' => 'merg' # merge file wins
  'conflict_resolution_method' => 'warn' # print warnings
                   # 'last-in_wins' is an alias for 'merg'
  # other options should be added later according to utility

merge()

The merge() member function can accept the same XML::XPath constructor options as new() but this time they are for the temporary file which will be merged into the main object. Merge-options from new() can also be specified && they will only impact one particular invokation of merge(). The specified document will be merged into the primary XML document object according to the following default merge rules:

  0. If both documents share the same root element name, they are
       merged directly.
  1. If they don't share root elements but the temporary merge file's
       root element is found anywhere within the main file, the merge
       occurs at the match.
  2. If no root element match is found, the merge document becomes the
       new last child of the main file's root element.
  3. Whenever a deeper level is found with an element of the same name
       in both documents && either it does not contain any
       distinguishing attributes or it has attributes which are
       recognized as 'identifier' (id) attributes (by default, for any
       element, these are attributes named: 'id', 'name', && 'handle'),
       a corresponding element is searched for to match && merge with.
  4. Any remaining (non-id) nodes are merged in document order.
  5. When a conflict arises as non-id attributes or other nodes merge,
       the specified conflict_resolution_method merge-option is
       applied (which by default has the main file data persist at the
       expense of the merging file data).

Some of the above rules can be overridden first by the object's merge-options && second by the particular method call's merge-options. Thus, if the default merge-option for conflict resolution is to have the main object win && you use the following constructor:

  my $main_xml_doc = XML::Merge->new(
    'filename'                   => 'MainFile.xml',
    'conflict_resolution_method' => 'last-in_wins');

... then any $main_xml_doc->merge() call would override the default merge behavior by letting the document being merged have priority over the main object's document. However, you could supply additional merge-options in the parameter list of your specific merge() call like:

  $main_xml_doc->merge(
    'filename'                   => 'File2Add.xml',
    'conflict_resolution_method' => 'warn');

... then the latest option would override the already overridden.

merge() can also accept another XML::Merge object as a parameter for what to be merged with the main object like:

  $main_xml_doc->merge(
    'merge_object'               => $another_merge_obj);

or just:

  $main_xml_doc->merge($another_merge_obj);

strip()

The strip() member function searches the Merge object's child XPath object for all mixed-content (ie. non-data) text nodes && empties them out. This will basically unformat (clear out) any markup indenting. strip() is probably barely useful by itself but it is needed by tidy() && it is exposed as a method in case it comes in handy for other uses.

tidy()

The tidy() member function can take two optional parameters:

  'indent_type'   => 'spaces', # or 'tabs'
  'indent_repeat' => 2         # number of times to repeat per indent

The default behavior is to use two (2) spaces for each indent level. The Merge object's XPath object gets all mixed-content (ie. non- data) text nodes reformatted to appropriate indent levels according to tree nesting depth.

write()

The write() member function can take an optional filename parameter to write out any changes which have resulted from any number of calls to merge() or tidy(). If no parameters are given, write() overwrites the original primary XML document file.

write() can also accept an XPath location to treat as the root node (element) to be written out to a disk file. If the XPath statement matches many elements, only the first encountered will be written out as the new root element. The object will remain unchanged (ie. even though the disk file may now have a new root node, the object would remain as it was with a potentially different root node that is an ancestor of the written one). If no elements are found at a specified XPath location, no file is written.

prune()

The prune() member function takes an XPath location to remove (along with all of its attributes && child nodes) from the Merge object.

unmerge()

The unmerge() member function is a shorthand for calling both write() && prune() on a certain XPath location which should be written out to a disk file before being removed from the Merge object. This process could be the opposite of merge if no original elements or attributes overlapped && combined but if combining did happen, this would remove original sections of your primary XML document's data from your Merge object so please use this carefully. It is meant to help separate a giant object (probably the result of myriad merge() calls) back into separate useful well-formed XML documents on disk.

unmerge() should be provided key => value pairs for both 'filename' && 'xpath_location'.

Accessors

_filename()

Returns the underlying filename (if any) associated with this object. An optional new filename can be provided as a parameter to override (or initialize) the object's filename.

_xpath_object()

Returns the underlying XML::XPath object. An optional XML::XPath object can be provided as a parameter to assign the underlying object (which will clobber any existing object along with all data therein so please use caution).

_mo_conflict_resolution_method()

Returns the underlying merge-option conflict_resolution_method. An optional new value can be provided as a parameter to be assigned as the XML::Merge object's merge-option.

_mo_comment_join_method()

Returns the underlying merge-option comment_join_method. An optional new value can be provided as a parameter to be assigned as the XML::Merge object's merge-option.

CHANGES

Revision history for Perl extension XML::Merge:

- 1.0.4C2Nf0R Thu Dec 2 23:41:00:27 2004

* updated license && prep'd for release

- 1.0.4C2BcI2 Thu Dec 2 11:38:18:02 2004

* updated reload(), strip(), && tidy() to verify _xpob exists

- 1.0.4C1JHOl Wed Dec 1 19:17:24:47 2004

* commented out override stuff since it's probably bad form && dumps crap warnings all over tests && causes them to fail... so I guess just uncomment that stuff if you care to preserve PI's && escapes

- 1.0.4C1J7gt Wed Dec 1 19:07:42:55 2004

* made merge() accept merge_source_xpath && merge_destination_xpath params

* made merge() accept other Merge objects

* made reload() not clobber basic escapes (by overloading Text toString())

* made tidy() not kill processing-instructions (by overloading node_test())

* made tidy() not kill comments

- 1.0.4BOHGjm Wed Nov 24 17:16:45:48 2004

* fixed merge() same elems with diff ids bug

- 1.0.4BNBCZL Tue Nov 23 11:12:35:21 2004

* rewrote both merge() && _recmerge() _cres stuff since it was buggy before... so hopefully consistently good now

- 1.0.4BMJCPm Mon Nov 22 19:12:25:48 2004

* fixed merge() for empty elem matching && _cres on text kids

- 1.0.4BMGTLF Mon Nov 22 16:29:21:15 2004

* separated reload() from strip() so that prune() can call it too

- 1.0.4BM0B3x Mon Nov 22 00:11:03:59 2004

* fixed tidy() empty elem bug && implemented prune() && unmerge()

- 1.0.4BJAZpM Fri Nov 19 10:35:51:22 2004

* fixing e() ABSTRACT gen bug

- 1.0.4BJAMR6 Fri Nov 19 10:22:27:06 2004

* fleshed out pod && members

- 1.0.4AIDqmR Mon Oct 18 13:52:48:27 2004

* original version

INSTALL

If you're using ActiveState, you probably need to: `md C:\Perl\site\lib\XML\' if the dir doesn't exist && copy this file into that directory.

If you don't understand how to do this, please ask for assistance.

Otherwise, please run:

    `perl -MCPAN -e "install XML::Merge"`

or uncompress the package && run the standard:

    `perl Makefile.PL; make; make test; make install`

FILES

XML::Merge requires:

Carp to allow errors to croak() from calling sub

XML::XPath to use XPath statements to query && update XML

XML::XPath::XMLParser to parse XML documents into XPath objects

LICENSE

Most source code should be Free! Code I have lawful authority over is && shall be! Copyright: (c) 2004, Pip Stuart. Copyleft : This software is licensed under the GNU General Public License (version 2), && as such comes with NO WARRANTY. Please consult the Free Software Foundation (http://FSF.Org) for important information about your freedom.

AUTHOR

Pip Stuart <Pip@CPAN.Org>

cpanm XML::Merge

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install XML::Merge