Distinguishing between an object and a -1 item array-

Question

this was a problem we came up building flex applications with
httpservices that return standart xml files for data.
assume there is a service called getEmployees.php which
returns an array of employees like
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<employees xmlns="
http://www.foo.com/employees">
<employee id="123456">
<lastname>Smith</lastname>
<firstname>Edward</firstname>
</employee>
<employee id="127937">
<lastname>Johnson</lastname>
<firstname>Neil</firstname>
</employee>
<employee id="127493">
<lastname>Brown</lastname>
<firstname>Joe</firstname>
</employee>
</employees>
spry environment will automatically implment
employees/employee as an array(i.e. dataset). however if we have
pnly one employee in db, getEmployees.php will return
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<employees xmlns="
http://www.foo.com/employees">
<employee id="123456">
<lastname>Smith</lastname>
<firstname>Edward</firstname>
</employee>
</employees>
now employees.employee will both look like an array with 1
element and an object.
to solve this problem we inserted a few attributes into the
xml and write a class in flex which makes a reliable conversion
from -our standart of xml- into native as objects.
i wonder if this problem occurs in spry, thatis will spry
convert employees array with a single employee correctly into a
dataset or will we handle this case again???
looking for responses,,,
Eren BALI

Answer 1

No, no, yes.
1. No. The code that is stored in an InDesign library file is the same as the code that forms a snippet. And that code is basically a subset of the IDML language. So: You cannot store snippets in a library, but objects on a spread.
2. No. There is nothing linked. Every time you place a snippet, every time you drag an asset out of a library, a new object is generated that does not link back to the "original" one.
Images, that are "linked" to an InDesign file are *not* stored in the asset. They are *not* stored in a snippet. Only their paths that point to the original somewhere on a volume are stored within.
However, if you place an image in InDesign and *embed* the image in the document, that embedded code is stored as well in the asset or the snippet file.
3. Yes. See answer #2. It is unique in a sense: A duplicate of its representation as a file (the snippet *.idms) or as an asset stored in an InDesign library file (*.indl). It cannot be edited "inside" of the library. You can "only" remove and add assets to a library.
However snippets can be edited with a "normal" text editor. Changes can be made in the XML of the snippet.
And if you place that edited snippet file InDesign will interpret the changes (if it can).
Uwe