> i love XML::Simple for its simplicity, but the order thing
> has been kind of a problem for me too. is it possible that
> the hash implementation could be changed by XML::Simple so
> that it always maintains order?
> this may be a ridiculous notion, i haven't explored perl in
> this way before.
Perl's basic hash data structure does not maintain the order
of the keys. It would be possible to use Tie::IxHash objects
instead of basic hashes and I will look at doing this. It
will have to be implemented as an option (like XML::Simple
needs more options) since Tie::IxHash is not a core Perl
module and it would have some performance impact.
Also, the order of interleaved elements will never be
maintained by XML::Simple. eg, this XML:
<opt>
<path>/bin</path>
<manpath>/usr/man</manpath>
<path>/usr/bin</path>
<manpath>/usr/share/man</manpath>
</opt>
Would emerge from XMLout looking like this:
<opt>
<path>/bin</path>
<path>/usr/bin</path>
<manpath>/usr/man</manpath>
<manpath>/usr/share/man</manpath>
</opt>
To sum up:
- unless someone sends me a patch, don't expect it in a hurry
- even when you get it, it might not do what you want
- if your application is that sensitive to element order then
perhaps it's not 'simple' :-)
Regards
Grant
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