question: public void encodeCell ( mxICell cell , Node node , boolean includeChildren ) { node . appendChild ( encode ( cell ) ) ; if ( includeChildren ) { int childCount = cell . getChildCount ( ) ; for ( int i = 0 ; i < childCount ; i ++ ) { encodeCell ( cell . getChildAt ( i ) , node , includeChildren ) ; } } }
target:  Encoding of cell hierarchies is built-into the core, but is a higher-level function that needs to be explicitely used by the respective object encoders (eg. mxModelCodec, mxChildChangeCodec and mxRootChangeCodec). This implementation writes the given cell and its children as a (flat) sequence into the given node. The children are not encoded if the optional includeChildren is false. The function is in charge of adding the result into the given node and has no return value.