Hi All,

Creating the XML is no problem, I build a nice method that easily and neatly builds a typed XML. Now I'm working on the translation back to pike and that's when I ran into some 'issues', having mainly to do with translating XML to an object.
Currently I have only basic types in the objects I want to store (arrays/mappings with int/string keys and values) which can easily translate back to the pike equivalents (provided I use some less pretty code for handling mapping and array creation). but I'd like to have the subject of object XML serialization covered before the expected function request arises :)

If, a generic type of, annotation was available/possible, it would be far more easier to accomplish this (/serialization to any type of output) without having to know or store everything about the objects involved.

Greetings,

Coen

On 12-1-2011 19:44, Johan Björklund wrote:

On 12/01/11 17:01, Coen Schalkwijk wrote:

Thanks for your suggestion. Is it possible in pike to do/use/consume something like 'they' do in dotNET:

[XMLNode name="A"]
classA{
    [XMLNode name="aVar"]
    string a;
    [XMLNode name="cookieCount"]
    int b;
}

There is no real need for this when it is so easy to look into objects, iterate, etc.

To map special names to variables, just use a mapping:

mapping XMLNames =
([ classA : ([ "a" : "aVar", "b" : "cookieCount" ]),
   classB : ([ "a" : "aVar", "b" : "somethingElse" ]) ]);

mapping default_XMLNames = ([ "a" : "aVar" ]);

object o = get_object();
mapping o_xml_names = XMLNames[object_program(o)] || default_XMLNames;

foreach (o; string var_name; mixed val) {
  string name = o_xml_names[var_name];
  if (!name) continue;
  /* add to xml */
}

This way seems preferable to editing and cluttering old code with annotations.

There is also Program.implements() which is probably good to use.