[Digester] Does really work?

[Naresh Bhatia]

I don't understand how to make <call-param-rule> work for parsing a
simple set of properties in to a Hashtable. Here's an example of my
data:

  <environment>
    <property name="prop1" value="value1"/>
    <property name="prop2" value="value2"/>
  </environment>

I have tried two approaches to push the parameters on to the stack, but
logger output shows that <call-param-rule> is never fired. Instead
<call-method-rule> is fired and it calls the put( ) method with two
nulls!

Approach 1:
  <pattern value="property">
    <call-method-rule methodname="put" paramcount="2">
      <call-param-rule param-index="0" attribute-name="name"/>
      <call-param-rule param-index="1" attribute-name="value"/>
    </call-method-rule>
  </pattern>

Approach 2:
  <pattern value="property">
    <call-param-rule param-index="0" attribute-name="name"/>
    <call-param-rule param-index="1" attribute-name="value"/>
    <call-method-rule methodname="put" paramcount="2"/>
  </pattern>

Looking at the DigesterRuleParser source code (release 1.3), I don't see
how <call-param-rule> will ever be called. Note below that
CallParamRuleFactory never returns a CallParamRule - it always returns a
CallMethodRule!

    protected class CallParamRuleFactory extends
AbstractObjectCreationFactory {

        public Object createObject(Attributes attributes) {
            // create callmethodrule
            int paramNumber =
Integer.parseInt(attributes.getValue("paramnumber"));
            String methodName = attributes.getValue("attrname");
            Rule callMethodRule = new CallMethodRule(targetDigester,
methodName,
                    paramNumber);
            return callMethodRule;
        }
    }

Please help

Naresh Bhatia