Ubuntu Manpage: dom - Create an in-memory DOM tree from XML

NAME

       dom - Create an in-memory DOM tree from XML

SYNOPSIS

       package require tdom

       dom method ?arg arg ...?
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DESCRIPTION

This command provides the creation of DOM trees in memory. In the usual case a string
containing a XML information is parsed and converted into a DOM tree. Other possible parse
input may be HTML or JSON. The method indicates a specific subcommand.

The valid methods are:

dom parse ?options? ?data?
Parses the XML information and builds up the DOM tree in memory providing a Tcl
object command to this DOM document object. Example:

dom parse $xml doc
$doc documentElement root

parses the XML in the variable xml, creates the DOM tree in memory, make a
reference to the document object, visible in Tcl as a document object command, and
assigns this new object name to the variable doc. When doc gets freed, the DOM tree
and the associated Tcl command object (document and all node objects) are freed
automatically.

set document [dom parse $xml]
set root [$document documentElement]

parses the XML in the variable xml, creates the DOM tree in memory, make a
reference to the document object, visible in Tcl as a document object command, and
returns this new object name, which is then stored in document. To free the
underlying DOM tree and the associative Tcl object commands (document + nodes +
fragment nodes) the document object command has to be explicitly deleted by:

$document delete

rename $document ""

The valid options are:

-simple
If -simple is specified, a simple but fast parser is used (conforms not
fully to XML recommendation). That should double parsing and DOM generation
speed. The encoding of the data is not transformed inside the parser. The
simple parser does not respect any encoding information in the XML
declaration. It skips over the internal DTD subset and ignores any
information in it. Therefore it doesn't include defaulted attribute values
into the tree, even if the according attribute declaration is in the
internal subset. It also doesn't expand internal or external entity
references other than the predefined entities and character references.

-html If -html is specified, a fast HTML parser is used, which tries to even parse
badly formed HTML into a DOM tree.

-html5 This option is only available if tDOM was build with --enable-html5. Try the
featureinfo method if you need to know if this feature is build in. If
-html5 is specified, the gumbo lib html5 parser
(https://github.com/google/gumbo-parser) is used to build the DOM tree. This
is, as far as it goes, XML namespace-aware. Since this probably isn't wanted
by a lot of users and adds only burden for no good in a lot of use cases
-html5 can be combined with -ignorexmlns, in which case all nodes and
attributes in the DOM tree are not in an XML namespace. All tag and
attribute names in the DOM tree will be lower case, even for foreign
elements not in the xhtml, svg or mathml namespace. The DOM tree may include
nodes, that the parser inserted because they are implied by the context (as
<head>, <tbody>, etc.).

-json If -json is specified, the data is expected to be a valid JSON string
(according to RFC 7159). The command returns an ordinary DOM document with
nesting token inside the JSON data translated into tree hierarchy. If a JSON
array value is itself an object or array then container element nodes named
(in a default build) arraycontainer or objectcontainer, respectively, are
inserted into the tree. The JSON serialization of this document (with the
domDoc method asJSON) is the same JSON information as the data, preserving
JSON datatypes, allowing non-unique member names of objects while preserving
their order and the full range of JSON string values. JSON datatype handling
is done with an additional property "sticking" at the doc and tree nodes.
This property isn't contained in an XML serialization of the document. If
you need to store the JSON data represented by a document, store the JSON
serialization and parse it back from there. Apart from this JSON type
information the returned doc command or handle is an ordinary DOM doc, which
may be investigated or modified with the full range of the doc and node
methods. Please note that the element node names and the text node values
within the tree may be outside of what the appropriate XML productions
allow.

-jsonmaxnesting integer
This options only has effect if used together with the -json option. The
current implementation uses recursive descent JSON parser. In order to avoid
using excess stack space, any JSON input that has more than a certain levels
of nesting is considered invalid. The default maximum nesting is 2000. The
option -jsonmaxnesting allows the user to adjust that.

-- The option -- marks the end of options. While respected in general this
option is only needed in case of parsing JSON data, which may start with a
"-".

-keepEmpties
If -keepEmpties is specified then text nodes which contain only whitespaces
will be part of the resulting DOM tree. In default case (-keepEmpties not
given) those empty text nodes are removed at parsing time.

-channel <channel-ID>
If -channel <channel-ID> is specified, the input to be parsed is read from
the specified channel. The encoding setting of the channel (via fconfigure
-encoding) is respected, ie the data read from the channel are converted to
UTF-8 according to the encoding settings before the data is parsed.

-baseurl <baseURI>
If -baseurl <baseURI> is specified, the baseURI is used as the base URI of
the document. External entities references in the document are resolved
relative to this base URI. This base URI is also stored within the DOM tree.

-feedbackAfter <#bytes>
If -feedbackAfter <#bytes> is specified, the tcl command given by
-feedbackcmd is evaluated at the first element start within the document (or
an external entity) after the start of the document or external entity or
the last such call after #bytes. For backward compatibility if no
-feedbackcmd is given but there is a tcl proc named ::dom::domParseFeedback
this proc is used as -feedbackcmd. If there isn't such a proc and
-feedbackAfter is used it is an error to not also use -feedbackcmd. If the
called script raises error, then parsing will be aborted, the dom parse call
returns error, with the script error msg as error msg. If the called script
return -code break, the parsing will abort and the dom parse call will
return the empty string.

-feedbackcmd <script>
If -feedbackcmd <script> is specified, the script script is evaluated at the
first element start within the document (or an external entity) after the
start of the document or external entity or the last such call after #bytes
value given by the -feedbackAfter option. If -feedbackAfter isn't given,
using this option doesn't has any effect. If the called script raises error,
then parsing will be aborted, the dom parse call returns error, with the
script error msg as error msg. If the called script return -code break, the
parsing will abort and the dom parse call will return the empty string.

-externalentitycommand <script>
If -externalentitycommand <script> is specified, the specified tcl script is
called to resolve any external entities of the document. The actual
evaluated command consists of this option followed by three arguments: the
base uri, the system identifier of the entity and the public identifier of
the entity. The base uri and the public identifier may be the empty list.
The script has to return a tcl list consisting of three elements. The first
element of this list signals how the external entity is returned to the
processor. Currently the two allowed types are "string" and "channel". The
second element of the list has to be the (absolute) base URI of the external
entity to be parsed. The third element of the list are data, either the
already read data out of the external entity as string in the case of type
"string", or the name of a tcl channel, in the case of type "channel". Note
that if the script returns a tcl channel, it will not be closed by the
processor. It must be closed separately if it is no longer needed.

-useForeignDTD <boolean>
If <boolean> is true and the document does not have an external subset, the
parser will call the -externalentitycommand script with empty values for the
systemId and publicID arguments. Please note that if the document also
doesn't have an internal subset, the -startdoctypedeclcommand and
-enddoctypedeclcommand scripts, if set, are not called. The -useForeignDTD
respects

-paramentityparsing <always|never|notstandalone>
The -paramentityparsing option controls, if the parser tries to resolve the
external entities (including the external DTD subset) of the document while
building the DOM tree. -paramentityparsing requires an argument, which must
be either "always", "never", or "notstandalone". The value "always" means
that the parser tries to resolves (recursively) all external entities of the
XML source. This is the default in case -paramentityparsing is omitted. The
value "never" means that only the given XML source is parsed and no external
entity (including the external subset) will be resolved and parsed. The
value "notstandalone" means, that all external entities will be resolved and
parsed, with the execption of documents, which explicitly states
standalone="yes" in their XML declaration.

-ignorexmlns
It is recommended, that you only use this option with the -html5 option. If
this option is given, no node within the created DOM tree will be internally
marked as placed into an XML Namespace, even if there is a default namespace
in scope for un-prefixed elements or even if the element has a defined
namespace prefix. One consequence is that XPath node expressions on such a
DOM tree doesn't work as expected. Prefixed element nodes can't be selected
and element nodes without prefix will be seen by XPath expressions as if
they are not in any namespace (no matter if they are in fact should be in a
default namespace).

dom createDocument docElemName ?objVar?
Creates a new DOM document object with one element node with node name docElemName.
The objVar controls the memory handling as explained above.

dom createDocumentNS uri docElemName ?objVar?
Creates a new DOM document object with one element node with node name docElemName.
Uri gives the namespace of the document element to create. The objVar controls the
memory handling as explained above.

dom createDocumentNode ?objVar?
Creates a new 'empty' DOM document object without any element node. objVar controls
the memory handling as explained above.

dom setResultEncoding ?encodingName?
This option is for backward compatibility with Tcl 8.0. If tDOM is build with any
newer Tcl version this option does not has any effect. If encodingName is not given
the current global result encoding is returned. Otherwise the global result
encoding is set to encodingName. All character data, attribute values etc. will
then be converted from UTF-8, which is delivered from the Expat XML parser, to the
given 8 bit encoding at XML/DOM parse time. Valid values for encodingName are:
utf-8, ascii, cp1250, cp1251, cp1252, cp1253, cp1254, cp1255, cp1256, cp437, cp850,
en, iso8859-1, iso8859-2, iso8859-3, iso8859-4, iso8859-5, iso8859-6, iso8859-7,
iso8859-8, iso8859-9, koi8-r.

dom createNodeCmd ?-returnNodeCmd? ?-tagName name? ?-jsonType jsonType? ?-namespace URI?
(element|comment|text|cdata|pi)Node commandName
This method creates Tcl commands, which in turn create tDOM nodes. Tcl commands
created by this command are only avaliable inside a script given to the domNode
methods appendFromScript or insertBeforeFromScript. If a command created with
createNodeCmd is invoked in any other context, it will return error. The created
command commandName replaces any existing command or procedure with that name. If
the commandName includes any namespace qualifiers, it is created in the specified
namespace. The -tagName option is only allowed for the elementNode type. The
-jsonType option is only allowed for elementNode and textNode types.

If such command is invoked inside a script given as argument to the domNode method
appendFromScript or insertBeforeFromScript it creates a new node and appends this
node at the end of the child list of the invoking element node. If the option
-returnNodeCmd was given, the command returns the created node as Tcl command. If
this option was omitted, the command returns nothing. Each command creates always
the same type of node. Which type of node is created by the command is determined
by the first argument to the createNodeCmd. The syntax of the created command
depends on the type of the node it creates.

If the command type to create is elementNode, the created command will create an
element node, if called. Without the -tagName option the tag name of the created
node is commandName without namespace qualifiers. If the -tagName option was given
then the created command the created elements will have this tag name. If the
-jsonType option was given then the created node elements will have the given JSON
type. If the -namespace option is given the created element node will be XML
namespaced and in the namespace given by the option. The element name will be
literal as given either by the command name or the -tagname option, if that was
given. An appropriate XML namespace declaration will be automatically added, to
bind the prefix (if the element name has one) or the default namespace (if the
element name hasn't a prefix) to the namespace if such a binding isn't in scope.

The syntax of the created command is:

elementNodeCmd ?attributeName attributeValue ...? ?script?
elementNodeCmd ?-attributeName attributeValue ...? ?script?
elementNodeCmd name_value_list script

The command syntax allows three different ways to specify the attributes of the
resulting element. These could be specified with attributeName attributeValue
argument pairs, in an "option style" way with -attriubteName attributeValue
argument pairs (the '-' character is only syntactical sugar and will be stripped
off) or as a Tcl list with elements interpreted as attribute name and the
corresponding attribute value. The attribute name elements in the list may have a
leading '-' character, which will be stripped off.

Every elementNodeCmd accepts an optional Tcl script as last argument. This script
is evaluated as recursive appendFromScript script with the node created by the
elementNodeCmd as parent of all nodes created by the script.

If the first argument of the method is textNode, the command will create a text
node. If the -jsonType option was given then the created text node will have that
JSON type. The syntax of the created command is:

textNodeCmd ?-disableOutputEscaping? data

If the optional flag -disableOutputEscaping is given, the escaping of the ampersand
character (&) and the left angle bracket (<) inside the data is disabled. You
should use this flag carefully.

If the first argument of the method is commentNode or cdataNode the command will
create an comment node or CDATA section node. The syntax of the created command is:

nodeCmd data

If the first argument of the method is piNode, the command will create a processing
instruction node. The syntax of the created command is:

piNodeCmd target data

dom setStoreLineColumn ?boolean?
If switched on, the DOM nodes will contain line and column position information for
the original XML document after parsing. The default is not to store line and
column position information.

dom setNameCheck ?boolean?
If NameCheck is true, every method which expects an XML Name, a full qualified name
or a processing instructing target will check, if the given string is valid
according to its production rule. For commands created with the createNodeCmd
method to be used in the context of appendFromScript the status of the flag at
creation time decides. If NameCheck is true at creation time, the command will
check its arguments, otherwise not. The setNameCheck set this flag. It returns the
current NameCheck flag state. The default state for NameCheck is true.

dom setTextCheck ?boolean?
If TextCheck is true, every command which expects XML Chars, a comment, a CDATA
section value or a processing instructing value will check, if the given string is
valid according to its production rule. For commands created with the createNodeCmd
method to be used in the context of appendFromScript the status of the flag at
creation time decides. If TextCheck is true at creation time, the command will
check its arguments, otherwise not.The setTextCheck method sets this flag. It
returns the current TextCheck flag state. The default state for TextCheck is true.

dom setObjectCommands ?(automatic|token|command)?
Controls if documents and nodes are created as tcl commands or as token to be used
with the domNode and domDoc commands. If the mode is 'automatic', then methods used
at tcl commands will create tcl commands and methods used at doc or node tokes will
create tokens. If the mode is 'command' then always tcl commands will be created.
If the mode is 'token', then always token will be created. The method returns the
current mode. This method is an experimental interface.

dom isName name
Returns 1 if name is a valid XML Name according to production 5 of the XML 1.0
recommendation. This means that name is a valid XML element or attribute name.
Otherwise it returns 0.

dom isPIName name
Returns 1 if name is a valid XML processing instruction target according to
production 17 of the XML 1.0 recommendation. Otherwise it returns 0.

dom isNCName name
Returns 1 if name is a valid NCName according to production 4 of the of the
Namespaces in XML recommendation. Otherwise it returns 0.

dom isQName name
Returns 1 if name is a valid QName according to production 6 of the of the
Namespaces in XML recommendation. Otherwise it returns 0.

dom isCharData string
Returns 1 if every character in string is a valid XML Char according to production
2 of the XML 1.0 recommendation. Otherwise it returns 0.

dom isBMPCharData string
Returns 1 if every character in string is a valid XML Char with a Unicode code
point within the Basic Multilingual Plane (that means, that every character within
the string is at most 3 bytes long). Otherwise it returns 0.

dom isComment string
Returns 1 if string is a valid comment according to production 15 of the XML 1.0
recommendation. Otherwise it returns 0.

dom isCDATA string
Returns 1 if string is valid according to production 20 of the XML 1.0
recommendation. Otherwise it returns 0.

dom isPIValue string
Returns 1 if string is valid according to production 16 of the XML 1.0
recommendation. Otherwise it returns 0.

dom featureinfo feature
This method provides information about the used build options and the expat
version. The valid values for the feature argument are:

expatversion
Returns the version of the underlyling expat version as string, something
like "exapt_2.1.0". This is what the expat API function XML_ExpatVersion()
returns.

expatmajorversion
Returns the major version of the underlyling expat version as integer.

expatminorversion
Returns the minor version of the underlyling expat version as integer.

expatmicroversion
Returns the micro version of the underlyling expat version as integer.

dtd Returns as boolean if build with --enable-dtd.

ns Returns as boolean if build with --enable-ns.

unknown
Returns as boolean if build with --enable-unknown.

tdomalloc
Returns as boolean if build with --enable-tdomalloc.

lessns Returns as boolean if build with --enable-lessns.

TCL_UTF_MAX
Returns the TCL_UTF_MAX value of the tcl core, tDOM was build with as
integer

html5 Returns as boolean, if build with --enable-html5.

KEYWORDS

       XML, DOM, document, node, parsing