NAME

       XML::Easy::Element - abstract form of XML element

SYNOPSIS

               use XML::Easy::Element;

               $element = XML::Easy::Element->new("a",
                               { href => "#there" }, $content);

               $type_name = $element->type_name;
               $attributes = $element->attributes;
               $href = $element->attribute("href");
               $content = $element->content_object;

DESCRIPTION

       An object of this class represents an XML element, a node in the tree making up an XML
       document.  This is in an abstract form, intended for general manipulation.  It is
       completely isolated from the textual representation of XML, and holds only the meaningful
       content of the element.  The data in an element object cannot be modified: different data
       requires the creation of a new object.

       The properties of an XML element are of three kinds.  Firstly, the element has exactly one
       type, which is referred to by a name.  Secondly, the element has a set of zero or more
       attributes.  Each attribute consists of a name, which is unique among the attributes of
       the element, and a value, which is a string of characters.  Finally, the element has
       content, which is a sequence of zero or more characters and (recursively) elements,
       interspersed in any fashion.

       The element type name and attribute names all follow the XML syntax for names.  This
       allows the use of a wide set of Unicode characters, with some restrictions.  Attribute
       values and character content can use almost all Unicode characters, with only a few
       characters (such as most of the ASCII control characters) prohibited by the specification
       from being directly represented in XML.

       This class is not meant to be subclassed.  XML elements are unextendable, dumb data.
       Element objects are better processed using the functions in XML::Easy::NodeBasics than
       using the methods of this class.

CONSTRUCTOR

       XML::Easy::Element->new(TYPE_NAME, ATTRIBUTES, CONTENT)
           Constructs and returns a new element object with the specified properties.  TYPE_NAME
           must be a string.  ATTRIBUTES must be a reference to a hash in the same form that is
           returned by the accessor method "attributes" (below).  CONTENT must be a reference to
           either an XML::Easy::Content object or a twine array (see "Twine" in
           XML::Easy::NodeBasics).  All are checked for validity, against the XML 1.0
           specification, and the function "die"s if any are invalid.

METHODS

       $element->type_name
           Returns the element type name, as a string.

       $element->attributes
           Returns a reference to a hash encapsulating the element's attributes.  In the hash,
           each key is an attribute name, and the corresponding value is the attribute's value as
           a string.

           The returned hash must not be subsequently modified.  If possible, it will be marked
           as read-only in order to prevent modification.  As a side effect, the read-only-ness
           may make lookup of any non-existent attribute generate an exception rather than
           returning "undef".

       $element->attribute(NAME)
           Looks up a specific attribute of the element.  The supplied NAME must be a string
           containing a valid attribute name.  If there is an attribute by that name then its
           value is returned, as a string.  If there is no such attribute then "undef" is
           returned.

       $element->content_object
           Returns a reference to an XML::Easy::Content object encapsulating the element's
           content.

       $element->content_twine
           Returns a reference to a twine array (see "Twine" in XML::Easy::NodeBasics) listing
           the element's content.

           The returned array must not be subsequently modified.  If possible, it will be marked
           as read-only in order to prevent modification.

       $element->content
           Deprecated alias for the "content_twine" method.

SEE ALSO

       XML::Easy::Content, XML::Easy::NodeBasics

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.