mxml/www/docfiles/Indexing.html
2004-06-21 11:00:28 +00:00

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<TITLE>Mini-XML Programmers Manual, Version 2.0</TITLE>
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<H2><A NAME="4_5">Indexing</A></H2>
<P>Mini-XML provides functions for managing indices of nodes. The
current implementation provides the same functionality as the <A href="mxmlFindElement.html#mxmlFindElement">
<TT>mxmlFindElement()</TT></A>. The advantage of using an index is that
searching and enumeration of elements is significantly faster. The only
disadvantage is that each index is a static snapshot of the XML
document, so indices are not well suited to XML data that is updated
more often than it is searched. The overhead of creating an index is
approximately equal to walking the XML document tree. Nodes in the
index are sorted by element name and attribute value.</P>
<P>Indices are stored in <A href="mxmlindext.html#mxml_index_t"><TT>
mxml_index_t</TT></A> structures. The <A href="mxmlIndexNew.html#mxmlIndexNew">
<TT>mxmlIndexNew()</TT></A> function creates a new index:</P>
<PRE>
<A href="mxmlnodet.html#mxml_node_t">mxml_node_t</A> *tree;
<A href="mxmlindext.html#mxml_index_t">mxml_index_t</A> *ind;
ind = <A href="mxmlIndexNew.html#mxmlIndexNew">mxmlIndexNew</A>(tree, &quot;element&quot;, &quot;attribute&quot;);
</PRE>
<P>The first argument is the XML node tree to index. Normally this will
be a pointer to the <TT>?xml</TT> element.</P>
<P>The second argument contains the element to index; passing <TT>NULL</TT>
indexes all element nodes alphabetically.</P>
<P>The third argument contains the attribute to index; passing <TT>NULL</TT>
causes only the element name to be indexed.</P>
<P>Once the index is created, the <A href="mxmlIndexEnum.html#mxmlIndexEnum">
<TT>mxmlIndexEnum()</TT></A>, <A href="mxmlIndexFind.html#mxmlIndexFind">
<TT>mxmlIndexFind()</TT></A>, and <A href="mxmlIndexReset.html#mxmlIndexReset">
<TT>mxmlIndexReset()</TT></A> functions are used to access the nodes in
the index. The <A href="mxmlIndexReset.html#mxmlIndexReset"><TT>
mxmlIndexReset()</TT></A> function resets the &quot;current&quot; node pointer in
the index, allowing you to do new searches and enumerations on the same
index. Typically you will call this function prior to your calls to <A href="mxmlIndexEnum.html#mxmlIndexEnum">
<TT>mxmlIndexEnum()</TT></A> and <A href="mxmlIndexFind.html#mxmlIndexFind">
<TT>mxmlIndexFind()</TT></A>.</P>
<P>The <A href="mxmlIndexEnum.html#mxmlIndexEnum"><TT>mxmlIndexEnum()</TT>
</A> function enumerates each of the nodes in the index and can be used
in a loop as follows:</P>
<PRE>
<A href="mxmlnodet.html#mxml_node_t">mxml_node_t</A> *node;
<A href="mxmlindext.html#mxml_index_t">mxml_index_t</A> *ind;
mxmlIndexReset(ind);
while ((node = mxmlIndexEnum(ind)) != NULL)
{
// do something with node
}
</PRE>
<P>The <A href="mxmlIndexFind.html#mxmlIndexFind"><TT>mxmlIndexFind()</TT>
</A> function locates the next occurrence of the named element and
attribute value in the index. It can be used to find all matching
elements in an index, as follows:</P>
<PRE>
<A href="mxmlnodet.html#mxml_node_t">mxml_node_t</A> *node;
<A href="mxmlindext.html#mxml_index_t">mxml_index_t</A> *ind;
mxmlIndexReset(ind);
while ((node = mxmlIndexFind(ind, &quot;element&quot;, &quot;attr-value&quot;)) != NULL)
{
// do something with node
}
</PRE>
<P>The second and third arguments represent the element name and
attribute value, respectively. A <TT>NULL</TT> pointer is used to
return all elements or attributes in the index. Passing <TT>NULL</TT>
for both the element name and attribute value is equivalent to calling <TT>
mxmlIndexEnum</TT>.</P>
<P>When you are done using the index, delete it using the <A href="#mxmlIndexDelete()">
<TT>mxmlIndexDelete()</TT></A> function:</P>
<PRE>
<A href="mxmlindext.html#mxml_index_t">mxml_index_t</A> *ind;
mxmlIndexDelete(ind);
</PRE>
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