Collection

A DOM4 interface to keep references to DomElement children of a element.

A collection should call initialize with the object's type to be added to the connection and, at construction time, set the element this collection should take its members from.

This way, you can have a property to access all child elements of a given type, the node will be added automatically to both as a child of your element and as a member of the collection.

  // This is your object definition and a collection one
  public class YourObject : GXml.Element {
   [Description (nick="::Name")]
   public string name { get; set; }
   construct {
     // This is the Element's node's name to be used
     try { initialize ("NodeName"); }
     catch (GLib.Error e ) {
       warning ("Error: "+e.message);
     }
   }
  }
  public class YourList : GXml.ArrayList {
   construct {
     // With this, your collection will find a add all elements
     // with the node's name 'NodeName' as declared to YourObject class
     try { initialize (typeof (YourObject)); }
     catch (GLib.Error e) {
       warning ("Initialization error for collection type: %s : %s"
            .printf (get_type ().name(), e.message));
     }
   }
  }
  // This is your element object definition with a collection of nodes
  // with the type YourObject
  public class YourElement : GXml.Element {
    public YourObject.YourList your_objects { get; set; }
    construct {
      // This is initializing the property 'your_objects' which is the type
      // YourList collection and set YourElement object as its element to
      // to take its members from. Use canonical names for properties as shown
      set_instance_property ('your-objects');
      // This is the node's name to use for YourElement class
       try { initialize ("YourElement"); }
       catch (GLib.Error e) {
         warning ("Initialization error for element type: %s", e.message));
       }
     }
   }