The pain of raw XML

Posted 4/8/2009 & filed under C++, GADfly.

It’s like the dark ages in here just now. Being so used to working in Java with XMLBeans I’ve been spoiled when it comes to XML handling. I never have to see it. OK, I have to design XML schemata now and then if they don’t exist but it means I can work on XML as domain objects. Now, working in C++ again, it’s back to raw XML. Here’s an example:

<user>
  <id>test</id>
</user>

with Java and XMLBeans I could just do:

userDoc.getUser().getId().getValue();

with C++ I have to do a bit more work:

pDoc = parser->getDocument();
pRootNode = pDoc->getDocumentElement();
pNodes = pRootNode->getElementsByTagName(L"user");
for (int c=0; c < pNodes->getLength(); c++) {
  pNode = pNodes->item(c);
  pDomainObjectNodes = ((DOMElement*)(pNode))->getElementsByTagName(L"*");
  for (int cc=0; cc < pDomainObjectNodes->getLength(); cc++) {
    pDomainNode = pDomainObjectNodes->item(cc);
    pTextNode = pDomainNode->getFirstChild();
    printf("%ls -> %ls\n", pDomainNode->getNodeName(), pTextNode->getNodeValue());
  }
}

not only that, look at the mess on the second last line of code:

pTextNode = pDomainNode->getFirstChild();

a Text Node of all things. Instead of the XML you see, this is actually the case:

<id><text>test</text></id>

I ask you! I knew that but when I first started working with XML it threw me. Why on earth? What the?

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