Hi All, Originally I'm on record as opposing the idea of generating our records and types via autogeneration from XML definitions. I now see Glen was absolutely right. I was afraid that supporting it would be more trouble then it was worth and bla bla bla. Anyhow I was also concerned about "subclassing" idea Glen brought up but I'm game to it provided its done in a way thats not confusing.
for instance org.apache.poi.hssf.record.definition would contain the autogenerated record stub say BOFRecordStub org.apache.poi.hssf.record would contain the stub subclass that had the meaty functions in it. the definitions should contain at least one abstract function that prevents them from being instantiated or perhaps protected constructors or something. Subclasses must clearly point to their definition and vice versa. The initial subclass could be autogenerated for implementation speed, but should be deliberately non-working. We might consider doing this for hdf of course as well. This would allow us to keep the autogenerated records up to day and in synch with the xml definitions w/o breaking concrete complex implementation functions. I also think it minimizes the complexity and might even be reasonably sound oopwise because it seperated non-structural concerns from structural concerns (meaning the binary structure and functions from the stuff we have to do to stuff data in and out of it)... Thoughts, comments, social criticisms? Should we convert the old stuff... Coming up with a method to do that sounds like a job for Super-NicolaKen. Anyhow, me thinks I have the starts of a good run for HDF. I'll shortly begin banging out HDF definitions. I hope to bang out FIB this weekend. Hopefully this will scare Ryan into coming out of the dark and work in the light.. :-) -Andy -- http://www.superlinksoftware.com http://jakarta.apache.org/poi - port of Excel/Word/OLE 2 Compound Document format to java http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4487555.html - fix java generics! The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote. -Ambassador Kosh
