On 5/16/07, Phil Endecott <spam_from_boost_dev@chezphil.org> wrote:
Jake wrote:
Here's a completely fabricated example. To generate:
<rootnode name="r"> <subthing>Hello</subthing> <subthing>World</subthing> </rootnode>
how about:
cout << node("rootnode")( attribute("name","r"), node("subthing")(text("Hello")), node("subthing")(text("World")) );
I've used this syntax in the past: rootnode(name = "r") [ subthing(text = "Hello"), subthing(text = "World") ]; Not for XML output, but for general static info that is in a hierarchy, and modeled somewhat after XML. You could also do: rootnode(name = "r", foo = 17) where the attributes were not strings (could be anything that rootnode 'accepts') etc. it requires pre 'building' the magic elements and attributes: struct RootNode { RootNode(string s); void Set(Foo foo); void AddChild(...); }; // rootnode is an element corresponding to RootNode // when attributes are passed to rootnode, it will construct a RootNode with those attributes // that correspond to the constructor, and call Set for the rest element<RootNode> rootnode; attribute<Foo> foo; the rootnode(...) call doesn't have to create and return a RootNode, but that's the default. The sub elements get added to the RootNode via AddChild. If the attribute type doesn't match the Set(s) type, it doesn't compile. If the child element type doesn't match the AddChild function(s), it doesn't compile. Creating elements and adding children, however, were just the default Policies, you could do whatever. So maybe it could be made to output XML. Anyhow, I just want to mention that interesting syntax like that IS possible. (although it wasn't simple...) Tony