BasicClasses.BIXMLWriteable

Module BasicClasses :: Class BIXMLWriteable

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Class BIXMLWriteable

object --+
         |
        BIXMLWriteable

Known Subclasses:: BioInfer, Entity, Formula, FormulaNode, Link, Linkage, Linkages, Ontology, OntologyNode, Predicate, Sentence, Sentences, SubToken, Token

Definition of methods and variables for XML output. Any object that is included in the XML output needs to inherit from this class. The XML output mechanism works as follows.

Each object defines a class variable XMLTag which is a string containing the tag to be used for the object in the XML output. This tag is used when writing the XML, not when reading the XML.
Each object defines iterable (typically list or tuple) persistentAttrs which lists (as strings) the names of instance variables whose values should be included as attributes in the XML output. For instance, if an instance contains the variable id and the string id is in its persistentAttrs, the attribute id= will be output in the XML representation of this object. The builtin str is used to convert values to strings.
Sometimes the persistentAttrs mechanism is not sufficient. That is, for example, the case when a reference to an other object is held, and its id should be used as an attribute. In that case, an object may define a method computeXMLArgs() which returns an iterable of two-tuples, where each tuple is (attributeName,attributeValue) - both strings - that specifies the attribute names and values to be included into the XML output. It is possible to combine persistentAttrs with computeXMLArgs().
If the object defines writeXMLNestedItems method, it is called so that the object may output any nested objects. It should do so by calling their writeXML method. See the definition of writeXMLNestedItems in any of the objects to see an example.

Method Summary
	`writeXML(self, out, indent, **kwArgs)` Outputs the complete XML representation of the given object.
	`writeXMLClose(self, out, indent)` Prints the closing tag of the object: </tag>.
	`writeXMLOpen(self, out, indent, closing)` Writes opening tag into the XML output.
	`XMLAttrs(self)` Computes the string representation of the object's attributes, which are included into the XML tag.
Inherited from object
	`__init__(...)` x.__init__(...) initializes x; see x.__class__.__doc__ for signature
	`__delattr__(...)` x.__delattr__('name') <==> del x.name
	`__getattribute__(...)` x.__getattribute__('name') <==> x.name
	`__hash__(x)` x.__hash__() <==> hash(x)
	`__reduce__(...)` helper for pickle
	`__reduce_ex__(...)` helper for pickle
	`__repr__(x)` x.__repr__() <==> repr(x)
	`__setattr__(...)` x.__setattr__('name', value) <==> x.name = value
	`__str__(x)` x.__str__() <==> str(x)
Inherited from type
	`__new__(T, S, ...)` T.__new__(S, ...) -> a new object with type S, a subtype of T

Class Variable Summary
`list`	`persistentAttrs`: The list of attributes to be included in the XML output.

Method Details

writeXML(self, out, indent, **kwArgs)

Outputs the complete XML representation of the given object.

The XML tag, including the attributes is printed.
If defined, the nested object are recursively printed via a call to writeXMLNestedItems.
The closing tag is printed. If there are no nested objects, the complete <tag/> was used already in step 1.

Parameters:: out - The output stream to which the XML representation should be printed.; indent - The indentation level of the XML block.
(type=Integer); kwArgs - Any keyword arguments will be passed to writeXMLNestedItems

writeXMLClose(self, out, indent=0)

Prints the closing tag of the object: </tag>.

Parameters:: out - The output stream to which the output is printed.; indent - The indentation level of the XML block.
(type=Integer)

writeXMLOpen(self, out, indent=0, closing=False)

Writes opening tag into the XML output. Depending on the parameter closing, the opening will be a simple opening tag <tag> or a complete tag <tag/>.

Parameters:: out - Output stream to which the XML output is printed.; indent - Indentation level of the output.
(type=Integer); closing - If true, the complete tag <tag/> is produced. If false, only the opening tag <tag> is produced.
(type=bool)

XMLAttrs(self)

Computes the string representation of the object's attributes, which are included into the XML tag. Invokes the mechanism for attribute printing (described above) to obtain all printable attributes of the object

Returns:: A string containing the XML-encoded, textual representation of the object's attributes

Class Variable Details

persistentAttrs

The list of attributes to be included in the XML output. By default an empty list, that is, no attributes are included by default.

Type:: list
Value:: []

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