[xsd-users] question on optional elements/attributes syntax

[Ballentine, Casey]

Hi Bruno,

That makes perfect sense. Thanks for helping out!

Casey

-----Original Message-----
From: Boris Kolpackov [mailto:boris at codesynthesis.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2015 10:34 AM
To: Ballentine, Casey
Cc: xsd-users at codesynthesis.com
Subject: Re: [xsd-users] question on optional elements/attributes syntax

Hi Casey,

Ballentine, Casey <crballentine at essvote.com> writes:

> The returned values for optional elements are ThisIsMyElement_optional 
> types. One thing I did discover is that complex elements that have 
> sub-elements do require the .present() and .get() calls, but simple 
> elements like Booleans can be accessed using the direct method. Does that make sense?

I don't think it is "like Booleans" but rather "only Booleans". optional<> has a smart pointer-like interface which allows you to write:

if (x.member ())
{
  cerr << *x.member () << endl;
}

To achieve this, optional<> provides conversion to bool, which is why boolean optional members appear to be directly accessible (though the returned value is of course wrong).

Boris