NAME

       XML::Easy - XML processing with a clean interface

SYNOPSIS

               use XML::Easy::NodeBasics qw(xml_element xml_e_attribute);
               use XML::Easy::Text
                       qw(xml10_read_document xml10_write_document);

               $element = xml_element("a", { href => "there" }, "there");
               $element = xml10_read_document('<a href="there">there</a>');

               $href = xml_e_attribute($element, "href");
               $text = xml10_write_document($element);

               # see specific modules for many more functions

DESCRIPTION

       XML::Easy is a collection of modules relating to the processing, parsing, and
       serialisation of XML data.  It is oriented towards the use of XML to represent data for
       interchange purposes, rather than the use of XML as markup of principally textual data.
       It does not perform any schema processing, and does not interpret DTDs or any other kind
       of schema.  It adheres strictly to the XML specification, in all its awkward details,
       except for the aforementioned DTDs.

       XML::Easy strictly separates the in-program manipulation of XML data from the processing
       of the textual form of XML.  This shields the XML user from the inconvenient and obscure
       aspects of XML syntax.  XML data nodes are mainly processed in a clean functional style,
       using the XML::Easy::NodeBasics module.  In the (very likely) event that an application
       requires some more purpose-specific XML data processing facilities, they are readily built
       on top of XML::Easy::NodeBasics, retaining the abstraction from textual XML.

       When XML must be handled in textual form, for input and output, the XML::Easy::Text module
       supplies a parser and a serialiser.  The interfaces here, too, are functional in nature.

       There are other modules for some ancillary aspects of XML processing.

MODULES

       The modules in the XML::Easy distribution are:

       XML::Easy
           This document.  For historical reasons, this can also be loaded as a module, and
           (though it is deprecated) some of the functions from XML::Easy::Text can be imported
           from here.

       XML::Easy::Classify
           This module provides various type-testing functions, relating to data types used in
           the XML::Easy ensemble.  These are mainly intended to be used to enforce validity of
           data being processed by XML-related functions.

       XML::Easy::Content
       XML::Easy::Element
           These are classes used to represent XML data for general manipulation.  Objects of
           these classes hold the meaningful content of the data, independent of textual
           representation.  The data in these nodes cannot be modified: different data requires
           new nodes.

       XML::Easy::NodeBasics
           This module supplies functions concerned with the creation, examination, and other
           manipulation of XML data nodes (content chunks and elements).  The nodes are dumb data
           objects, best manipulated using plain functions such as the ones in this module.

       XML::Easy::Syntax
           This module supplies Perl regular expressions describing the grammar of XML 1.0.  This
           is intended to support doing irregular things with XML, rather than for normal
           parsing.

       XML::Easy::Text
           This module supplies functions that parse and serialise XML data as text according to
           the XML 1.0 specification.

OTHER DISTRIBUTIONS

       Other CPAN distributions that work with XML::Easy are:

       Test::XML::Easy
           A testing tool, providing Test::More-style functions that check whether XML nodes are
           as expected.

       XML::Easy::ProceduralWriter
           Provides a way to construct XML data nodes by procedural code.  Some programmers will
           find this more comfortable than the functional style offered by XML::Easy::NodeBasics.

       XML::Easy::SimpleSchemaUtil
           Helps to parse things that are encoded in XML in common ways.

       "XML::Easy::Transform::"
           This namespace exists to contain modules that perform transformations on XML
           documents, or parts thereof, in the form of XML::Easy::Element and XML::Easy::Content
           nodes.

SEE ALSO

       XML::Easy::Classify, XML::Easy::NodeBasics, XML::Easy::Syntax, XML::Easy::Text,
       <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/>

AUTHOR

       Andrew Main (Zefram) <zefram@fysh.org>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2008, 2009 PhotoBox Ltd

       Copyright (C) 2009, 2010, 2011 Andrew Main (Zefram) <zefram@fysh.org>

LICENSE

       This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
       terms as Perl itself.