[XML-SIG] Proper way of generating a parentless Node object

[Mark Humphrey]

Okay, this is a kind of odd situation, but I need to know the correct way to create a Node (Text node or Element, I actually have to create both) that is not attached to a particular document and that can be inserted into any given document.

The situation is this.  I am using a namespace in a document so that I can embed cross-references in the document.  I want to be able to use the same cross-references in several document types.  With this in mind, I've also created a Python class that can read those cross-references and then export them again in several different formats, including XHtml.

The problem, though, is that this cross-reference class does not know what the parent document will be.

Normally, when I need to create a node, I use code that looks like this:

from xml.dom import DOMImplementation

def toHtml (self):
	dom = DOMImplementation.DOMImplementation()
	doc = dom.createDocument(None, u'Target', None)
	target = doc.createElement(u'a')

If I do this, though, I can't attach "target" to anything other than the document named "Target".  So, I was thinking of doing this:

from xml.dom import Node

def toHtml (self):
	target = Node()
	target.nodeName = u'a'
	target.nodeType = Node.ELEMENT_NODE
	return target

But that has me accessing not only internal object variables, it has me *setting* variables that the DOM spec says are supposed to be read-only.

How should I really be doing this?  Essentially, I'm trying to make an element that I can attach to any document.

-- 
Mark "Markus" Humphrey		<msph@alyra.org>
http://www.alyra.org/~msph/
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