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Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 10:17:38 +0100
Reply-To: Marcus Boerger <helly@php.net>
Message-ID: <1572071705312.20040115101738@marcus-boerger.de>
To: Sterling Hughes <sterling@php.net>
Cc: Marcus Boerger <helly@php.net>, internals@lists.php.net
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] SimpleXML: Moving Forward
From: helly@php.net (Marcus Boerger)

Hello Sterling,

Saturday, January 19, 1980, 12:10:39 PM, you wrote:

>> Hello Adam,
>> 
>> Thanks for moving backward. Since iterating is now worthless i am all for
>> removing it completley. I mean it isn't even in the spirit of the extension.
>> I will sleep over this tonight and probably remove the work of another full
>> week too. Just because it is too complex and doesn't fit in the current
>> scheme of SimpleXMl.
>>

> Marcus - why remove iterators?  Just because we remove their user level
> API's, I see no reason to remove the internal implementations?

According to this weeks discussion there was a pro on not removing the
functions we had right now. That includes the iterator user functions as
well which are needed for interaction between sxe and spl or for other user
space specializations of iteration.

Further more we (ppl not involved in developing sxe at all) discussed to
reduced sxe to the level described in readme which i think they have not
read at all. But be it that way.

My plan now - since sxe is absolutly worthless for me - is to complete my
work to fully enable inhertance on sxe objects. That is a derived sxe object
will create sxe objects of the same type when returning child elements as
objects. If anyone disagrees here i will mark the class as final and be
done. But speak now because i can waste my time with better things.

After that *fix* i will move all (userspace) iteration mechanisms to an
inherited class inside spl. Since an infrastructure change is needed for
that spl finally has to wait for 5.1 or even 6 (or in that case) i need
to reinvent the wheel completley. Anyway this is what i *will* do. [This i
will do not only because i like iteration but because i did it for two
reasons. First being simplicity for several easy things and second for
optimization in several scenarios. Even though i still haven't prooved the
latter.]

Coming back to the iteration within sxe. NO - i repeat - no php object
that offeres array overloading is forced to behave like an array when it
comes to iteration so i do not see any reason any longer this should be the
case for sxe objects. If there is anyone please tell me. [And further more no
object can be used in array functions even though i already should it would
be possible for several object types in all but two array functions.]

And now back to comparing xpath with with iteration. First question is why
don't we drop the xpath search method and implement this as aray access
which would look much better to my eyes then and we could drop another
method. Then i also wonder why people think forcing other people to learn
xpath is simplier or easier then using iteration? But as this was an ofter
raised oppinion in the last days i think we should drop iteration
completley (or implement it fully as we had before).

But maybe i am wrong and it is only the complex iteration strategies people
wanted to drop and with that they wanted to disallow others to implement
such things because it can be done with xpath expressions too.

I am sorry for the long mail and it would have been better in the first
place if only the main developers behind the extension would have been asked
before a change and agreed upon one.

-- 
Best regards,
 Marcus                            mailto:helly@php.net