Helper function for REXML to create an element and pass in text and attribute at once.

create_element.rb

#Method
def create_element(name, content, attributes = {})
	element = Element.new name
	if content.is_a? Array
		content.each { |e|
			element.elements << e
		}
	else
		(element.text = content) unless(content.nil?)
	end

	if !attributes.empty?
		attributes.each_pair { |(key, value)|
			element.add_attribute(key, value)
		}
	end
	return element
end



#long way
element = Element.new 'timestamp'
element.add_text '2pm'
element.add_attribute 'smlns:o', 'http://somewhere.in.the.web'
element.add_attribute 'Id', '12'
element2 = Element.new 'information'
element2.add_text 'dffdfdfdfdf'
element2.add_attribute 'smlns:o', 'http://somewhere.in.the.web'
element2.add_attribute 'Id', '12'
element_parent = Element.new 'parent'
element_parent.add_attribute 'smlns:o', 'http://somewhere.in.the.web'
element_parent.add_attribute 'Id', '12'
element_parent.elements << element
element_parent.elements << element2

#New way
element = create_element("timestamp",'2 pm', {'smlns:o' => 'http://somewhere.in.the.web', 'Id' => '12'})
element2 = create_element("information",'dffdfdfdfdf', {'smlns:o' => 'http://somewhere.in.the.web', 'Id' => '12'})
element_parent = create_element("parent", [element, element2], {'smlns:o' => 'blahblah', 'Id' => '12'})
puts element_parent

#Outputs
#<parent Id='12' smlns:o='blahblah'><timestamp Id='12' smlns:o='http://somewhere.in.the.web'>2 pm</timestamp><information Id='12' smlns:o='http://somewhere.in.the.web'>dffdfdfdfdf</information></parent>