[Yanel-dev] XMLHelper added

[Alec Bickerton]

Alec Bickerton wrote:
> Guillaume Déflache wrote:
>> Michael Wechner schrieb:
>>> The Wyona commons lib contains some new XML helper/utility methods
>> A few comments on
>> https://svn.wyona.com/repos/public/commons/trunk/src/java/org/wyona/commons/xml/XMLHelper.java
>> follows:
>>
>> Why using arrays in interfaces, and not Iterable (Java 1.5+) or Iterator
>> or Collection?
>>
>> Please avoid implementation-specific classes as parameters: HashMap ->
>> Map: what if wanted to give the method a sorted map?
>>
>> Can someone explain to me what the use case for isFragment is? ...or
>> even write a unit test! :)
> 
> isFragment is simply to indicate if the XML declaration should be included.
> 
>>>         if( document == null ){
>>>             log.warn("document to string called with a null document!,
>>> don't do this.");
>>>             return null;
>>>         }
> 
> Fair enough, I personally prefer to only throw exceptions when really
> necessary. This should be handled by done by the caller.
> 
>> I would rather throw a NPE right here with the same comment than getting
>> it in a maybe distance place!
>> BTW shouldn't we always rethrow exceptions as runtime ones in helper
>> classes? Do we otherwise have an exception handling policy?
> 
> I'm open to it but I feel a library is better to be explicit about the
> exception that it throws. Just throwing a raw exception is not that helpful.
> 
>>> I am currently trying to refactor this, whereas I want to write tests
>>> first for the existing code, before actually substituting with the
>>> helper methods.
> 
> That sound perfectly reasonable. However as it stands, If no namespace
> is usedm, a NPE will be thrown.
>

Correction, It does not. but the code does complain about a missing
CatalogManager.properties file.

Do we really need to have all this overhead just for creating a DOM Object?