Entities to the rescue!

You can just create a wrapper that will include just the root element and a call to an entity referencing the log file, which itself has no root tag:

log.xml is:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE log [
<!ENTITY data SYSTEM "log.data">
]>
<log>&data;</log>

[download]

log.data is:

<event time='1234' type='this'>
<detail>blah</detail><detail>blahblah</detail>
</event>
<event time='1236' type='this'>
<detail>blah</detail><detail>blahblah</detail>
</event>
<event time='2234' type='that'>
<detail>weeble</detail><detail>blahblah</detail>
</event>

[download]

XML processors should have no problem with this (tested with perl -MXML::Simple -MData::Denter -e'print Denter XMLin( "log.xml");'). You just output your log data to log.data and use log.xml when you want to do XML processing on it.

In reply to Re: XML log files by mirod
in thread XML log files by dingus

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