File Doc Category Size Date Package
Attributes.java API Doc Java SE 6 API 8730 Tue Jun 10 00:27:36 BST 2008 org.xml.sax

Attributes

public interface Attributes

Interface for a list of XML attributes.

This module, both source code and documentation, is in the Public Domain, and comes with NO WARRANTY. See http://www.saxproject.org for further information.

This interface allows access to a list of attributes in three different ways:

by attribute index;
by Namespace-qualified name; or
by qualified (prefixed) name.

The list will not contain attributes that were declared #IMPLIED but not specified in the start tag. It will also not contain attributes used as Namespace declarations (xmlns*) unless the http://xml.org/sax/features/namespace-prefixes feature is set to true (it is false by default). Because SAX2 conforms to the original "Namespaces in XML" recommendation, it normally does not give namespace declaration attributes a namespace URI.

Some SAX2 parsers may support using an optional feature flag (http://xml.org/sax/features/xmlns-uris) to request that those attributes be given URIs, conforming to a later backwards-incompatible revision of that recommendation. (The attribute's "local name" will be the prefix, or "xmlns" when defining a default element namespace.) For portability, handler code should always resolve that conflict, rather than requiring parsers that can change the setting of that feature flag.

If the namespace-prefixes feature (see above) is false, access by qualified name may not be available; if the http://xml.org/sax/features/namespaces feature is false, access by Namespace-qualified names may not be available.

This interface replaces the now-deprecated SAX1 {@link org.xml.sax.AttributeList AttributeList} interface, which does not contain Namespace support. In addition to Namespace support, it adds the getIndex methods (below).

The order of attributes in the list is unspecified, and will vary from implementation to implementation.

since: SAX 2.0
author: David Megginson
version: 2.0.1 (sax2r2)
see: org.xml.sax.helpers.AttributesImpl
see: org.xml.sax.ext.DeclHandler#attributeDecl

Fields Summary
Constructors Summary
Methods Summary
public int getIndex(java.lang.String uri, java.lang.String localName)
Look up the index of an attribute by Namespace name.
param
uri The Namespace URI, or the empty string if the name has no Namespace URI.
param
localName The attribute's local name.
return
The index of the attribute, or -1 if it does not appear in the list.
public int getIndex(java.lang.String qName)
Look up the index of an attribute by XML qualified (prefixed) name.
param
qName The qualified (prefixed) name.
return
The index of the attribute, or -1 if it does not appear in the list.
public abstract int getLength()
Return the number of attributes in the list.
Once you know the number of attributes, you can iterate through the list.
return
The number of attributes in the list.
see
#getURI(int)
see
#getLocalName(int)
see
#getQName(int)
see
#getType(int)
see
#getValue(int)
public abstract java.lang.String getLocalName(int index)
Look up an attribute's local name by index.
param
index The attribute index (zero-based).
return
The local name, or the empty string if Namespace processing is not being performed, or null if the index is out of range.
see
#getLength
public abstract java.lang.String getQName(int index)
Look up an attribute's XML qualified (prefixed) name by index.
param
index The attribute index (zero-based).
return
The XML qualified name, or the empty string if none is available, or null if the index is out of range.
see
#getLength
public abstract java.lang.String getType(java.lang.String qName)
Look up an attribute's type by XML qualified (prefixed) name.
See {@link #getType(int) getType(int)} for a description of the possible types.
param
qName The XML qualified name.
return
The attribute type as a string, or null if the attribute is not in the list or if qualified names are not available.
public abstract java.lang.String getType(int index)
Look up an attribute's type by index.
The attribute type is one of the strings "CDATA", "ID", "IDREF", "IDREFS", "NMTOKEN", "NMTOKENS", "ENTITY", "ENTITIES", or "NOTATION" (always in upper case).

If the parser has not read a declaration for the attribute, or if the parser does not report attribute types, then it must return the value "CDATA" as stated in the XML 1.0 Recommendation (clause 3.3.3, "Attribute-Value Normalization").

For an enumerated attribute that is not a notation, the parser will report the type as "NMTOKEN".
param
index The attribute index (zero-based).
return
The attribute's type as a string, or null if the index is out of range.
see
#getLength
public abstract java.lang.String getType(java.lang.String uri, java.lang.String localName)
Look up an attribute's type by Namespace name.
See {@link #getType(int) getType(int)} for a description of the possible types.
param
uri The Namespace URI, or the empty String if the name has no Namespace URI.
param
localName The local name of the attribute.
return
The attribute type as a string, or null if the attribute is not in the list or if Namespace processing is not being performed.
public abstract java.lang.String getURI(int index)
Look up an attribute's Namespace URI by index.
param
index The attribute index (zero-based).
return
The Namespace URI, or the empty string if none is available, or null if the index is out of range.
see
#getLength
public abstract java.lang.String getValue(java.lang.String uri, java.lang.String localName)
Look up an attribute's value by Namespace name.
See {@link #getValue(int) getValue(int)} for a description of the possible values.
param
uri The Namespace URI, or the empty String if the name has no Namespace URI.
param
localName The local name of the attribute.
return
The attribute value as a string, or null if the attribute is not in the list.
public abstract java.lang.String getValue(java.lang.String qName)
Look up an attribute's value by XML qualified (prefixed) name.
See {@link #getValue(int) getValue(int)} for a description of the possible values.
param
qName The XML qualified name.
return
The attribute value as a string, or null if the attribute is not in the list or if qualified names are not available.
public abstract java.lang.String getValue(int index)
Look up an attribute's value by index.
If the attribute value is a list of tokens (IDREFS, ENTITIES, or NMTOKENS), the tokens will be concatenated into a single string with each token separated by a single space.
param
index The attribute index (zero-based).
return
The attribute's value as a string, or null if the index is out of range.
see
#getLength