This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Weiqi Gao. Original Post: Native XML Comes To Firefox 1.5's JavaScript Feed Title: Weiqi Gao's Weblog Feed URL: http://www.weiqigao.com/blog/rss.xml Feed Description: Sharing My Experience... Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Weiqi Gao Latest Posts From Weiqi Gao's Weblog

I first blogged about E4X 425 days ago. At the time it was only available in Rhino. I'm happy to note that E4X support is part of JavaScript 1.6, which is delivered with Firefox 1.5.

As a simple illustration, the following line (in a red box, which you won't see unless you use Firefox 1.5) is written from JavaScript with E4X:

Here's the JavaScript that outputs the line:

<script type="application/x-javascript; version=1.5; e4x=1">
  var x = <div/>;
  x.@style = "margin-left:3em";
  x.span = "JavaScript for XML in Firefox 1.5"; 
  x.span.@style = "border: solid red 1pt";
  document.write(x);
</script>

Now guess what this will do (you will see the result if you are in Firefox 1.5):

<script type="text/javascript;e4x=1">
function makeRow(item) {
  var date = item.pubDate.text();
  var url = item.link.text();
  var title = item.title.text();

  var row = <tr/>;
  row.td += <td><a href={url}>{title}</a></td>;
  row.td += <td>{date}</td>;
  return row;
}

function makeTable(feed) {
  var table = <table/>;
  var items = feed..item;
  for each (var item in items) {
    table.tr += makeRow(item);
  }
  table.@style = "margin-left:3em";
  table.@border = "1";
  return table;
}

function getFeed()
{
  var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
  xhr.open("GET", "http://www.weiqigao.com/blog/rss.xml", false);
  xhr.send(null);
  return new XML(xhr.responseText.substring(38));
}

var feed = getFeed();
var table = makeTable(feed);
document.write(table);