God, I hate DTDs. I really do. Why this idiot standard still plagues us is beyond me.

Methods
M
N
T
U
V
W
Included Modules
Constants
PUBIDCHAR = "\x20\x0D\x0Aa-zA-Z0-9\\-()+,./:=?;!*@$_%#"
 
SYSTEMLITERAL = %Q{((?:"[^"]*")|(?:'[^']*'))}
 
PUBIDLITERAL = %Q{("[#{PUBIDCHAR}']*"|'[#{PUBIDCHAR}]*')}
 
EXTERNALID = "(?:(?:(SYSTEM)\\s+#{SYSTEMLITERAL})|(?:(PUBLIC)\\s+#{PUBIDLITERAL}\\s+#{SYSTEMLITERAL}))"
 
NDATADECL = "\\s+NDATA\\s+#{NAME}"
 
PEREFERENCE = "%#{NAME};"
 
ENTITYVALUE = %Q{((?:"(?:[^%&"]|#{PEREFERENCE}|#{REFERENCE})*")|(?:'([^%&']|#{PEREFERENCE}|#{REFERENCE})*'))}
 
PEDEF = "(?:#{ENTITYVALUE}|#{EXTERNALID})"
 
ENTITYDEF = "(?:#{ENTITYVALUE}|(?:#{EXTERNALID}(#{NDATADECL})?))"
 
PEDECL = "<!ENTITY\\s+(%)\\s+#{NAME}\\s+#{PEDEF}\\s*>"
 
GEDECL = "<!ENTITY\\s+#{NAME}\\s+#{ENTITYDEF}\\s*>"
 
ENTITYDECL = /\s*(?:#{GEDECL})|(?:#{PEDECL})/um
 
PEREFERENCE_RE = /#{PEREFERENCE}/um
 
Attributes
[R] external
[R] name
[R] ndata
[R] pubid
[R] ref
Class Public methods
matches?(string)

Evaluates whether the given string matchs an entity definition, returning true if so, and false otherwise.

# File lib/rexml/entity.rb, line 68
def Entity::matches? string
  (ENTITYDECL =~ string) == 0
end
new(stream, value=nil, parent=nil, reference=false)

Create a new entity. Simple entities can be constructed by passing a name, value to the constructor; this creates a generic, plain entity reference. For anything more complicated, you have to pass a Source to the constructor with the entity definition, or use the accessor methods. WARNING: There is no validation of entity state except when the entity is read from a stream. If you start poking around with the accessors, you can easily create a non-conformant Entity. The best thing to do is dump the stupid DTDs and use XMLSchema instead.

e = Entity.new( 'amp', '&' )
# File lib/rexml/entity.rb, line 35
def initialize stream, value=nil, parent=nil, reference=false
  super(parent)
  @ndata = @pubid = @value = @external = nil
  if stream.kind_of? Array
    @name = stream[1]
    if stream[-1] == '%'
      @reference = true
      stream.pop
    else
      @reference = false
    end
    if stream[2] =~ /SYSTEM|PUBLIC/
      @external = stream[2]
      if @external == 'SYSTEM'
        @ref = stream[3]
        @ndata = stream[4] if stream.size == 5
      else
        @pubid = stream[3]
        @ref = stream[4]
      end
    else
      @value = stream[2]
    end
  else
    @reference = reference
    @external = nil
    @name = stream
    @value = value
  end
end
Instance Public methods
normalized()

Returns the value of this entity unprocessed – raw. This is the normalized value; that is, with all %ent; and &ent; entities intact

# File lib/rexml/entity.rb, line 87
def normalized
  @value
end
to_s()

Returns this entity as a string. See write().

# File lib/rexml/entity.rb, line 121
def to_s
  rv = ''
  write rv
  rv
end
unnormalized()

Evaluates to the unnormalized value of this entity; that is, replacing all entities – both %ent; and &ent; entities. This differs from +value()+ in that value only replaces %ent; entities.

# File lib/rexml/entity.rb, line 75
def unnormalized
  document.record_entity_expansion unless document.nil?
  v = value()
  return nil if v.nil?
  @unnormalized = Text::unnormalize(v, parent)
  @unnormalized
end
value()

Returns the value of this entity. At the moment, only internal entities are processed. If the value contains internal references (IE, %blah;), those are replaced with their values. IE, if the doctype contains:

<!ENTITY % foo "bar">
<!ENTITY yada "nanoo %foo; nanoo>

then:

doctype.entity('yada').value   #-> "nanoo bar nanoo"
# File lib/rexml/entity.rb, line 136
def value
  if @value
    matches = @value.scan(PEREFERENCE_RE)
    rv = @value.clone
    if @parent
      matches.each do |entity_reference|
        entity_value = @parent.entity( entity_reference[0] )
        rv.gsub!( /%#{entity_reference.join};/um, entity_value )
      end
    end
    return rv
  end
  nil
end
write(out, indent=-1)

Write out a fully formed, correct entity definition (assuming the Entity object itself is valid.)

out

An object implementing <TT>&lt;&lt;<TT> to which the entity will be output

indent

DEPRECATED and ignored

# File lib/rexml/entity.rb, line 99
def write out, indent=-1
  out << '<!ENTITY '
  out << '% ' if @reference
  out << @name
  out << ' '
  if @external
    out << @external << ' '
    if @pubid
      q = @pubid.include?('"')?"'":'"'
      out << q << @pubid << q << ' '
    end
    q = @ref.include?('"')?"'":'"'
    out << q << @ref << q
    out << ' NDATA ' << @ndata if @ndata
  else
    q = @value.include?('"')?"'":'"'
    out << q << @value << q
  end
  out << '>'
end