[KinoSearch] Re: Subclassable Highlighter

[Marvin Humphrey]

On Feb 29, 2008, at 12:36 PM, Father Chrysostomos wrote:

> Actually, my main point was that the highlighter should accept a  
> code ref

Ah.

> Basically,
>
> my $highlighter = new KinoSearch::Highlight::Highlighter ...;
> $highlighter->set_encoder(sub { ... })
>
> is a lot shorter (and less convoluted) than
>
> { package MyHighlighter;
>  @ISA = KinoSearch::Highlight::Highlighter;
>  sub encode { ... } }
>
> my $highlighter = new MyHighlighter ...;


I think that would make a nice addition to a  
KSx::Highlight::Summarizer.  :)  I don't really think it should be in  
the core Highlighter class, though, for a couple reasons.

First, not that many people are going to want to override encode().   
Most people will be serving highlighted search results via the web,  
and the default encode_entities() functionality will be appropriate.   
You made a good point about making it easy to change up the highlight  
tags; I don't believe adding a handle to set the encoding mechanism  
beyond overriding encode() has the same urgency.

Second, I'm trying to keep the KS architecture limited to a least- 
common-denominator single-inheritance OO model; closures don't really  
fit into that.  I think it's good that KSx authors might not choose to  
adhere to the same rigid restrictions, though. :)

Marvin Humphrey
Rectangular Research
http://www.rectangular.com/