Proposed: New Function to Extract all Parameters

The functionality of the current parameter parser TWiki::Func::extractNameValuePair() is insufficient to discover all the parameters of a variable like %TEST{ "nameless" name1="val1" name2="val2" }%. It is also inefficient if you need to parse many parameters since the string parsing is done for each call.

This proposed function returns a hash that can be used easily:

extractAllParameters( $text ) ==> %hash

• Example:
  • Variable: %TEST{ "nameless" name1="val1" name2="val2" }%
  • First extract text between {...} to get: "nameless" name1="val1" name2="val2"
  • Then call this on the text:
    my %params = TWiki::Func::extractAllParameters( $text );
  • The %params hash contains now ( "_DEFAULT" => "nameless", "name1" => "val1", "name2" => "val2" )

-- PeterThoeny - 28 Mar 2004

The Attrs.pm module used by all my plugins does this, and it has a nice interface.

my $attrs = new Attrs( $text );
my $val = $attrs->remove( "param" ); # returns value of param and removes from hash
my $val = $attrs->get( "param" );
$attrs->set( "param", "val" ); # if you need to set a val
$attrs->toString(); # regenerates the original param set

-- CrawfordCurrie - 28 Mar 2004

Did this go in a release? or is it in DEVELOP?

-- SamHasler - 14 Feb 2005