adding flatten argument for xml_find_all

DESCRIPTION

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Package: xml2
 Title: Parse XML
-Version: 1.3.2.9000
+Version: 1.3.2.9001
 Authors@R: 
     c(person(given = "Hadley",
              family = "Wickham",
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ VignetteBuilder:
     knitr
 Encoding: UTF-8
 Roxygen: list(markdown = TRUE)
-RoxygenNote: 7.1.0
+RoxygenNote: 7.1.1
 SystemRequirements: libxml2: libxml2-dev (deb), libxml2-devel
     (rpm)
 Collate: 

NEWS.md

@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 # xml2 (development version)
 
+* `xml_find_all.xml_nodeset()` gains a `flatten` argument to control whether to return a single nodeset or a list of nodesets (#311, @jakejh)
+
 * `write_xml()` and `write_html()` now return NULL invisibly, as they did prior to version 1.3.0 (#307)
 
 # xml2 1.3.2

R/xml_find.R

@@ -12,9 +12,11 @@
 
 #' @param xpath A string containing a xpath (1.0) expression.
 #' @inheritParams xml_name
-#' @return `xml_find_all` always returns a nodeset: if there are no matches
-#'   the nodeset will be empty. The result will always be unique; repeated
-#'   nodes are automatically de-duplicated.
+#' @param ... Further arguments passed to or from other methods.
+#' @return `xml_find_all` returns a nodeset if applied to a node, and a nodeset
+#'   or a list of nodesets if applied to a nodeset. If there are no matches,
+#'   the nodeset(s) will be empty. Within each nodeset, the result will always
+#'   be unique; repeated nodes are automatically de-duplicated.
 #'
 #'   `xml_find_first` returns a node if applied to a node, and a nodeset
 #'   if applied to a nodeset. The output is *always* the same size as
@@ -46,11 +48,16 @@
 #' </body>")
 #' para <- xml_find_all(x, ".//p")
 #'
-#' # If you apply xml_find_all to a nodeset, it finds all matches,
-#' # de-duplicates them, and returns as a single list. This means you
+#' # By default, if you apply xml_find_all to a nodeset, it finds all matches,
+#' # de-duplicates them, and returns as a single nodeset. This means you
 #' # never know how many results you'll get
 #' xml_find_all(para, ".//b")
 #'
+#' # If you set flatten to FALSE, though, xml_find_all will return a list of
+#' # nodesets, where each nodeset contains the matches for the corresponding
+#' # node in the original nodeset.
+#' xml_find_all(para, ".//b", flatten = FALSE)
+#'
 #' # xml_find_first only returns the first match per input node. If there are 0
 #' # matches it will return a missing node
 #' xml_find_first(para, ".//b")
@@ -67,31 +74,37 @@
 #' ')
 #' xml_find_all(x, ".//f:doc")
 #' xml_find_all(x, ".//f:doc", xml_ns(x))
-xml_find_all <- function(x, xpath, ns = xml_ns(x)) {
+xml_find_all <- function(x, xpath, ns = xml_ns(x), ...) {
   UseMethod("xml_find_all")
 }
 
 #' @export
-xml_find_all.xml_missing <- function(x, xpath, ns = xml_ns(x)) {
+xml_find_all.xml_missing <- function(x, xpath, ns = xml_ns(x), ...) {
   xml_nodeset()
 }
 
 #' @export
-xml_find_all.xml_node <- function(x, xpath, ns = xml_ns(x)) {
+xml_find_all.xml_node <- function(x, xpath, ns = xml_ns(x), ...) {
   nodes <- .Call(xpath_search, x$node, x$doc, xpath, ns, Inf)
   xml_nodeset(nodes)
 }
 
+#' @param flatten A logical indicating whether to return a single, flattened
+#'   nodeset or a list of nodesets.
 #' @export
-xml_find_all.xml_nodeset <- function(x, xpath, ns = xml_ns(x)) {
+#' @rdname xml_find_all
+xml_find_all.xml_nodeset <- function(x, xpath, ns = xml_ns(x), flatten = TRUE, ...) {
   if (length(x) == 0)
     return(xml_nodeset())
 
-  nodes <- unlist(recursive = FALSE,
-    lapply(x, function(x)
-      .Call(xpath_search, x$node, x$doc, xpath, ns, Inf)))
+  res <- lapply(x, function(x) .Call(xpath_search, x$node, x$doc, xpath, ns, Inf))
 
-  xml_nodeset(nodes)
+  if (isTRUE(flatten)) {
+    return(xml_nodeset(unlist(recursive = FALSE, res)))
+  }
+
+  res[] <- lapply(res, xml_nodeset)
+  res
 }
 
 #' @export

tests/testthat/test-xml_find.R

@@ -49,6 +49,17 @@ test_that("no matches returns empty nodeset", {
   expect_equal(length(xml_find_all(x, "//baz")), 0)
 })
 
+test_that("xml_find_all returns nodeset or list of nodesets based on flatten", {
+  x <- read_xml("<body><p>Some <b>text</b>.</p>
+                 <p>Some <b>other</b> <b>text</b>.</p>
+                 <p>No bold here!</p></body>")
+  y <- xml_find_all(x, './/p')
+  z <- xml_find_all(y, './/b', flatten = FALSE)
+  expect_s3_class(xml_find_all(y, './/b'), 'xml_nodeset')
+  expect_type(z, 'list')
+  expect_s3_class(z[[1L]], 'xml_nodeset')
+})
+
 # Find num ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 test_that("xml_find_num errors with non numeric results", {
   x <- read_xml("<x><y/><y/></x>")