When I first started looking for XML generation modules, XML::Generator looked like the cleanest, simplest tool for the job: convert a database row (after some data massaging) into an XML document.

Unfortunately, the file I needed to generate has some 250 lines, and my code is almost a method-for-attribute match. While annoying, not the biggest problem with the code.

The real problem comes when I need to generate the following "looped" section: 


<imageinfo>
<imageurl1>http://www.company.com/images/photo1.jpg</imageurl1>
<imagecaption1>Caption 1</imagecaption1>
<imageurl2>http://www.company.com/images/photo2.jpg</imageurl2>
<imagecaption2>Caption 2</imagecaption2>
<imageurl3>http://www.company.com/images/photo3.jpg</imageurl3>
<imagecaption3>Caption 3</imagecaption3>
<imageurl4>http://www.company.com/images/photo4.jpg</imageurl4>
<imagecaption4>Caption 4</imagecaption4>
</imageinfo>

[download]
XML::Generator can handle that with a simple looping construct wrapped around the calls, i.e.: 

my $imageSection;

foreach my $imageId ( 1 .. 4 ) {
   my $urlName = "imageurl${imageId}";
   my $urlCaption = "imagecaption${imageId}";

   $imageSection .= $generator->$urlName(),
   $imageSection .= $generator->$urlCaption(),

}

[download]
This generated fragment is added to a larger document later, via: 
$generator->imageinfo( $imageSection ),

[download]

The problem comes when trying to avoid the native escaping of data. As expected, I can turn off escaping ... but that's not something I feel I should trust. Two generator objects would *help* -- but the larger part of the generation would be forced to *not* use the escaping.

I have a feeling there's a much better way of doing this, and I'd rather discover that now before I spend the next N days fighting with the mappings needed with some of the DB columns ... only to 'discover' a better way of generating this later on ...

In reply to nested loops and escaping in XML::Generator by geektron

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