XML (version 3.98-1.1)

xmlGetAttr: Get the value of an attribute in an XML node

Description

This is a convenience function that retrieves the value of a named attribute in an XML node, taking care of checking for its existence. It also allows the caller to provide a default value to use as the return value if the attribute is not present.

Usage

xmlGetAttr(node, name, default = NULL, converter = NULL,
            namespaceDefinition = character(),
             addNamespace = length(grep(":", name)) > 0)

Arguments

node

the XML node

name

the name of the attribute

default

a value to use as the default return if the attribute is not present in the XML node.

converter

an optional function which if supplied is invoked with the attribute value and the value returned. This can be used to convert the string to an arbitrary value which is useful if it is, for example, a number. This is only called if the att

namespaceDefinition

a named character vector giving name space prefixes and URIs to use when resolving for the the attribute with a namespace. The values are used to compare the name space prefix used in the name given by the user to th

addNamespace

a logical value that indicates whether we should put the namespace prefix on the resulting name. This is passed on to xmlAttrs and so controls whether the resulting attribute names have the pref

Value

• If the attribute is present, the return value is a string which is the value of the attribute. Otherwise, the value of default is returned.

Details

This just checks that the attribute list is non-NULL and that there is an element with the specified name.

References

http://www.w3.org/XML, http://www.jclark.com/xml, http://www.omegahat.org

See Also

xmlAttrs

Examples

node <- xmlNode("foo", attrs=c(a="1", b="my name"))

 xmlGetAttr(node, "a")
 xmlGetAttr(node, "doesn't exist", "My own default value")

 xmlGetAttr(node, "b", "Just in case")