[xmlroff] What changes to FoXmlDoc?

[Tony G. <Ton...@Su...>]

I am looking at modifying FoXmlDoc (in libfo/fo-xml-doc.[ch]) so it's also
possible to create an FoXmlDoc from a string.

The question then becomes how to change it.

The present process for creating an FoXmlDoc from a filename is long-winded:

      xml_doc = fo_xml_doc_new ();
      fo_xml_doc_set_filename (xml_doc,
			       xml_file);

      fo_xml_doc_parse (xml_doc,
			libfo_context,
			&error);

      if (error != NULL)
	{
	  g_critical ("%s:: %s",
		      g_quark_to_string (error->domain),
		      error->message);
	  g_error_free (error);
	  exit (1);
	}

That's partly because in the GObject world, everything has a _new() function,
so the filename is set after the FoXmlDoc is created.

Creating an FoXmlDoc from a buffer would really be a wrapper on xmlReadMemory:

   xmlDocPtr	xmlReadMemory		(const char * buffer, 
					 int size, 
					 const char * URL, 
					 const char * encoding, 
					 int options)

Where 'options' would be extracted from settings in an FoLibfoContext and the
rest would be set explicitly.

The short form of my question is, is it better to:

 - Make separate 'constructors':

      fo_xml_doc_new_from_filename (...)

      fo_xml_doc_new_from_memory (...)

 - Make separate subtypes:

     fo_xml_doc_memory_new ()

     fo_xml_doc_file_new ()

   that each have their own _set() functions for their disparate parameters

 - Parse on 'construction', such that the fo_xml_doc_parse() function is no
   longer required

 - Do something completely different?

Regards,


Tony.