xao-php: faq-user

FAQ::EndUsers

End Users are actually PHP application developers in this instance. XAO developers are the people who work on the XAO library itslef. Since XAO is still new and there are no users to speak of, it stands to reason that there are no frequently asked questions yet. What I can do is try to pre-empt questions that I think are likely to come up often amongst users.

When will XAO reach a stable release

XAO is based primarily on the functionality previded by the DOMXML PHP extension. Unfortunately, this extension is still listed as "experimental" and has been listed as such for quite some time. As you can imagine, it is difficult to be able to stqabilise anything that sits on top of such a library. However, it is possible to ensure that the functionality that XAO provides is well tested and predictable. So it is possible to release a stable XAO inspite of the "experimental" status of the DOMXML extension. We are aiming for stability in early 2004.

Why so many classes in the library? The class diagram looks complex.

Actually, the developer neededn't concern themselves with the vast majority of classes in the XAO library. The only classes that you will interact with are classes that are derived from DomDoc (such as AppDoc and DbToXml). You can pretty much ignore everything else. The other clases are used by these to implement their functionality. So really, you can write a fully fledged database application by only learning about how to use 3 classes in the whole library - DomDoc, AppDoc, and DbToXml. The other classes are documented for for the purposes of completeness and to satisfy the curiosity of those interested in the internals. However, it is worth mentioning that the classes stand on their own and there is not reason you couldn't use them directly or otherwise for your own purposes.

There are a lot of gaps in the API reference. What's up with that?

As mentioned in the API reference intro, XAO is a work in progress. You would expect the library to be continually evolving and improving anyway so it is logical to conclude that new code will not be comprehensively documented. The stable bits, however, are comprehensively documented. Any discrepencies should be reported to the mailing list. My advice it to just use the classes you need.