Builder gem - xml attributes ordering

ruby-talk
1

Hi,

I am currently developing a xml service using Ruby on rails with builder
gem. Builder is a great tool to create xml easily. But the only and
important issue I am facing is - unable to set the order inwhich the
attributes to be displayed in the xml. Whatever order I give the
attributes of an element, Builder creates the attributes in a totally
different order. Request someone's help to overcome this issue. Please
specify even if there is another method to create this service which
return xml instead of html using REST instead of Builder.

Thanks in advance
Arun

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2

<snip>

Why do you think the attributes for an element *should* appear in any
particular order?

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On 6/7/07, Arunprabu Durairaju <arunprabu@gmail.com> wrote:

I am ... unable to set the order in which the
attributes to be displayed in the xml.

3

Lyle Johnson wrote:

I am ... unable to set the order in which the
attributes to be displayed in the xml.

<snip>

Why do you think the attributes for an element *should* appear in any
particular order?

Hi Johnson,

The service We are developing is going to be used by and application and
persons. That is the service will be called from another application for
getting the data. In this case, the ordering is not a necessary thing.
But in case of reading the xml manually in a browser, it is easy to read
the data if it comes in a specified order. Because, there are 5 to 10
attributes to each elements in our xml. And it is tough to locate the
attribute each time.

Thanks
Arun

···

On 6/7/07, Arunprabu Durairaju <arunprabu@gmail.com> wrote:

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4

To be explicit, Builder's behavior is acceptable because the order of
attributes in XML is not defined:

"""Note that the order of attribute specifications in a start-tag or
empty-element tag is not significant."""

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/

HTH,
Keith

···

On 6/7/07, Lyle Johnson <lyle.johnson@gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/7/07, Arunprabu Durairaju <arunprabu@gmail.com> wrote:

> I am ... unable to set the order in which the
> attributes to be displayed in the xml.

<snip>

Why do you think the attributes for an element *should* appear in any
particular order?

5

Hi Johnson,

I understand that it is not specified in the XML specification and it is
not a requirement generally. But in languages like Java using Xerces,
the xml is generated with attributes in the sequence you have created
it. So just trying to find if there is any way to over come this issue.
I already have an alternative of constructing the xml as a string in the
sequence of attributes I need. But this is an ugly approach and trying
to find if there is any other alternative.

I also checked with REXML and it has the same behaviour as Builder.

Thanks
Arun

···

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6

Yeah, I'm sure they both use Hashes internally for attributes (and
Hashes are unordered in Ruby). However, it'd be easy to modify the
attribute insertion in Builder to take an Array instead. This is what
you'll have to change:

gems/builder-2.0.0/lib/builder/xmlmarkup.rb

    # Insert the attributes (given in the hash).
    def _insert_attributes(attrs, order=)
      return if attrs.nil?
      order.each do |k|
  v = attrs[k]
  @target << %{ #{k}="#{_attr_value(v)}"} if v
      end
      attrs.each do |k, v|
  @target << %{ #{k}="#{_attr_value(v)}"} unless order.member?(k)
      end
    end

Keith

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On 6/7/07, Arunprabu Durairaju <arunprabu@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Johnson,

I understand that it is not specified in the XML specification and it is
not a requirement generally.

I also checked with REXML and it has the same behaviour as Builder.