xml_hate is a small gem that describes my feelings for XML imports. I've written a billion of them, yet each time I start another I feel like I'm writing Assembler. Shouldn't it be easier? Shouldn't the code look nicer? Shouldn't this be more fun?
I've also noticed a number of things that I always tend to do. I always convert the XML to objects, I parse through the hierarchy to find child objects, I put in defensive checks for data that might-or-might-not exist, etc.
This gem is where I'm going to put these conventions and processes of mine. My goal is to take a XML document and immediately get it in the form that I need to use it.
<root>
<directory>
<employee lastname="Galt">
<address>123 W St</address>
<address>456 S Blvd</address>
<firstname>John</firstname>
</employee>
<employee lastname="Roark" firstname="Howard">
<address>789 S</address>
</employee>
<employee lastname="Rearden" />
</directory>
</root>document = XmlHate::Document.new(xml)
document.directory.employees.count # 3, note pluralization happened automatically
john_galt = document.directory.employees[0]
# note how I treat the single-value element and attribute the same
john_galt.lastname # Galt
john_galt.firstname # John
john_galt.addresses.count # 2, notice pluralization again
howard_roark = document.directory.employees[1]
howard_roark.firstname # Howard
howard_roark.lastname # Roark
howard_roark.addresses.count # 1
howard_roark.address # 789 S
rearden = document.directory.employees[2]
rearden.lastname # Rearden
rearden.firstname # "", defaults to empty string if the value cannot be found
rearden.whatever_i_want # "", see above
rearden.addresses.count # 0, returns [] by assuming you want the plural version