public XElement(String objectName) 
{
                         
      if ( objectName == null ) {
         throw new NullPointerException();
      }
      name = objectName;
      contents.addElement( new StringBuffer() );
}

Constructs an empty object.

Parameters:

objectName - the tag or element name that this object represents.

 public XElement(String objectName,
    Attributes atts) 
{
      if ( objectName == null ) {
         throw new NullPointerException();
      }
      if ( atts == null ) {
         throw new NullPointerException();
      }
      name = objectName;
      contents.addElement( new StringBuffer() );
      for ( int i = 0; i <  atts.getLength(); i++ ) {
         metadata.put( atts.getQName( i ), atts.getValue( i ) );
         //metadata.put( atts.getLocalName( i ), atts.getValue( i ) );
      }
}

Constructs an XElement with it's parent and metatags set.

Parameters:

objectName - the tag or element name that this object represents.

atts - Description of Parameter

 public  void add(String data) 
{
      ( ( StringBuffer )contents.elementAt( 0 ) ).append( data );
}

Adds and appends string data to the objects text.

 public  void addElement(XElement subObject) 
{
      contents.addElement( subObject );
      subObject.parent = this;
}

Adds an XElement to the set of XElements that are contained by this object.

 public  void addField(String key,
    String value) 
{
      XElement subObject = new XElement( key );
      subObject.add( value );
      addElement( subObject );
}

Adds an XElement to the set of XElements that are contained by this object.

 public boolean containsElement(String objectName) 
{
      try {
         getElement( objectName );
         return true;
      } catch ( XElementException e ) {
         return false;
      }
}

Tests to see if this object contains the specified object.

 public boolean containsField(String objectName) 
{
      try {
         XElement obj = getElement( objectName );
         return obj.isField();
      } catch ( XElementException e ) {
         return false;
      }
}

Tests to see if this object contains the specified attribute object.

 public static XElement createFrom(InputStream is) throws XElementException, IOException 
{
class MyRecordConsumer implements XElementConsumer {
         XElement   root = null;
         public void documentEndEvent() {
         }
         public void documentStartEvent() {
         }
         public void recordReadEvent( XElement o ) {
            root = o;
         }
      }
      MyRecordConsumer consumer = new MyRecordConsumer();
      XElementProducer producer = new XElementProducer( consumer );
      try {
         producer.parse( is );
         if ( consumer.root == null ) {
            throw new XElementException( "No root element" );
         }
         return consumer.root;
      } catch ( java.io.IOException e ) {
         throw e;
      } catch ( Exception e ) {
         throw new XElementException( "Parse Error: " + e );
      }
}

Constructs an empty object.

 public static XElement createFrom(URL url) throws XElementException, IOException 
{
class MyRecordConsumer implements XElementConsumer {
         XElement   root = null;
         public void documentEndEvent() {
         }
         public void documentStartEvent() {
         }
         public void recordReadEvent( XElement o ) {
            root = o;
         }
      }
      MyRecordConsumer consumer = new MyRecordConsumer();
      XElementProducer producer = new XElementProducer( consumer );
      try {
         producer.parse( url );
         if ( consumer.root == null ) {
            throw new XElementException( "No root element" );
         }
         return consumer.root;
      } catch ( java.io.IOException e ) {
         throw e;
      } catch ( Exception e ) {
         throw new XElementException( "Parse Error: " + e );
      }
}

Constructs an empty object.

 public Enumeration elements() 
{
      return getElementsNamed( "*" );
}

 public String getAttribute(String key) 
{
      String t = ( String )metadata.get( key );
      if ( t == null ) {
         return "";
      }
      return t;
}

Returns the value of a meta data value.

 public XElement getElement(String relativeName) throws XElementException 
{
      if ( relativeName == null ) {
         throw new NullPointerException();
      }
      String names[] = {null, relativeName};
      // Does the name have a "/" in it?
      String split[] = splitFront( relativeName, "/" );
      if ( split != null ) {
         // was it an absolute name? (started with a '/')
         if ( split[0].length() == 0 ) {
            // we are the parent
            if ( parent == null ) {
               split[0] = null;
            }
            // Let my parent handle the request.
            else {
               return parent.getElement( relativeName );
            }
         }
         // did we have a trailing / in the name?
         if ( split[1].length() == 0 ) {
            // For the case of "/",
            if ( split[0].equals( null ) ) {
               return this;
            }
            //otherwise it is an error
            // to leave a trailing /, for example tree/leaf/
            throw new XElementException( "Invalid name (trailing '/') : " + relativeName );
         }
         names = split;
      }
      if ( names[0] == null ) {
         for ( int i = 1; i <  contents.size(); i++ ) {
            XElement o = ( XElement )contents.elementAt( i );
            if ( names[1].equals( o.getName() ) ) {
               return o;
            }
         }
      } else {
         if ( names[0].equals( "." ) ) {
            return getElement( names[1] );
         } else if ( names[0].equals( ".." ) ) {
            if ( parent != null ) {
               return parent.getElement( names[1] );
            } else {
               throw new XElementException( "Invalid name (" + getName() + " has no parent) : " + relativeName );
            }
         } else {
            for ( int i = 1; i <  contents.size(); i++ ) {
               XElement o = ( XElement )contents.elementAt( i );
               if ( names[0].equals( o.getName() ) ) {
                  return o.getElement( names[1] );
               }
            }
         }
      }
      throw new XElementException( "Invalid name (" + getName() + " does not contain the name) : " + relativeName );
}

Returns the first object contained in this object named relativeName.

 public Enumeration getElementsNamed(String relativeName) 
{
      Vector t = new Vector();
      addElementsToVector( t, relativeName );
      return t.elements();
}

Returns all the contained objects with the specified name.

 public String getField(String objectName) throws XElementException 
{
      return getElement( objectName ).getValue();
}

Gets the value of a contained attribute object.

 public String getName() 
{
      return name;
}

Returns the element name (tag name) of this XElement

 public String getOptionalField(String field) throws XElementException 
{
      if ( !containsField(field) ) 
         return null;
      return getField(field);
}

 public XElement getParent() 
{
      return parent;
}

Get the parent of this object, or the object the contains this one.

 public String getText() 
{
      return contents.elementAt( 0 ).toString().trim();
}

Gets the TRIMMED character data that was within this object. This differs from getValue() in that:
• this fuction will work on attribute and non attribute XElements
• it will trim both ends of the character data before returning it.

 public String getValue() throws XElementException 
{
      if ( !isField() ) {
         throw new XElementException( "" + getName() + " is not an attribute object" );
      }
      return contents.elementAt( 0 ).toString();
}

Gets the character data that was within this object. This fuction can only be used on objects that are attributes.

 public boolean isField() 
{
      return contents.size() == 1;
}

Returns true if the object is an attribute object. An object is an attribute object if it does not contain any other objects.

 public  void removeFromParent() throws XElementException 
{
      if ( parent == null ) {
         throw new XElementException( "" + getName() + " does not have a parent" );
      }
      parent.contents.remove( this );
      parent = null;
}

Removes this XElement from the parent.

 public  void setAttribute(String key,
    String value) 
{
      metadata.put( key, value );
}

Sets/Adds a metatag value Only metatags whose value is not empty will display when the toString() methods is called.

 public  void setField(String key,
    String value) throws XElementException 
{
      getElement( key ).setValue( value );
}

Sets/Adds a attribute

 public  void setName(String newName) 
{
      name = newName;
}

Sets the object name

 public  void setOptionalField(String field,
    String value) throws XElementException 
{
      if ( value == null ) {
         if( containsField(field) )
         	  getElement(field).removeFromParent();
         return;
      }
      if( containsField(field) )
      	setField(field, value);
      else
      	addField(field, value);
}

 public  void setValue(String value) throws XElementException 
{
      if ( !isField() ) {
         throw new XElementException( "" + getName() + " is not an attribute object" );
      }
      contents.setElementAt( new StringBuffer( value ), 0 );
}

Gets the character data that was within this object. This fuction can only be used on objects that are attributes.

 public String toString() 
{
      return toString( 0, true );
}

Serializes this object into a string.

 public String toString(int nestingLevel,
    boolean indent) 
{
      try {
         StringBuffer indentation = new StringBuffer();
         StringBuffer rc = new StringBuffer();
         if ( indent ) {
            for ( int i = 0; i <  nestingLevel; i++ ) {
               indentation.append( '\t" );
            }
         }
         rc.append( indentation.toString() );
         rc.append( "< " );
         rc.append( getName() );
         Enumeration enumeration = metadata.keys();
         while ( enumeration.hasMoreElements() ) {
            String key = ( String )enumeration.nextElement();
            String value = ( String )metadata.get( key );
            rc.append( ' " );
            rc.append( key );
            rc.append( "=\"" );
            rc.append( metaValueEncode( value ) );
            rc.append( '"" );
         }
         if ( isField() ) {
            if ( getValue().length() == 0 ) {
               rc.append( "/ >" );
               rc.append( nl );
            } else {
               rc.append( ' >" );
               rc.append( valueEncode( getValue() ) );
               rc.append( "< /" );
               rc.append( getName() );
               rc.append( ' >" );
               rc.append( nl );
            }
         } else {
            rc.append( ' >" );
            rc.append( nl );
            String text = getText();
            if ( text.length()  > 0 ) {
               rc.append( indentation.toString() + "\t" );
               rc.append( getText() );
               rc.append( nl );
            }
            for ( int i = 1; i <  contents.size(); i++ ) {
               Object o = contents.elementAt( i );
               rc.append( ( ( XElement )o ).toString( nestingLevel + 1, indent ) );
            }
            rc.append( indentation.toString() );
            rc.append( "< /" );
            rc.append( getName() );
            rc.append( ' >" );
            rc.append( nl );
         }
         return rc.toString();
      } catch ( XElementException e ) {
         // This should not occur!
         e.printStackTrace();
         System.exit( 1 );
         return "";
      }
}

Serializes this object into a string.

 public String toXML(boolean indent) 
{
      return
            "< ?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"? >" + nl +
            toString( 0, indent );
}

Serializes this object into a XML document String.