XML::Twig and HTML Entities

blitzkrieg has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I can't seem to get XML::Twig to properly output an element that contains HTML tags. I'm trying to generate an XML document as input into another program that doesn't like CDATA elements.

Input: <pre>won't escape properly - uggh!</pre>
Desired Output: &lt;pre&gt;won't escape properly - uggh!&lt;/pre&gt;

Actual Output:
&lt;pre>won't escape properly - uggh!&lt;/pre>;

or

&amp;lt;pre&gt;won't escape properly - uggh!&amp;lt;/pre&gt;
[download]

The code snippet below produces the latter results and you can generate the former by commenting the output_text_filter line:

use XML::Twig;
my $tTwig = XML::Twig->new( pretty_print => 'indented',
                            output_text_filter => 'html',
                          );
$tTwig->set_xml_version( '1.0' );
$tTwig->set_output_encoding( 'utf-8' );
my $tLog = XML::Twig::Elt->new( 'log', q(<pre>won't escape properly - 
+uggh!</pre>) );
$tTwig->set_root( $tLog );
$tTwig->print;
[download]

blitzkrieg

Comment on XML::Twig and HTML Entities Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: XML::Twig and HTML Entities by bpphillips (Friar) on Nov 12, 2004 at 19:23 UTC
maybe I'm missing something but the output looks exactly as I would expect... Can you post an example of what you'd prefer XML::Twig to output?	[reply]
Re^2: XML::Twig and HTML Entities by blitzkrieg (Initiate) on Nov 12, 2004 at 20:01 UTC
Here's what the code snippet actually generates: `<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <log>&lt;pre>won't escape properly - uggh!&lt;/pre></log +>` [download] Here's what I desire? `<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <log><pre>won't escape properly - uggh!</pre></log>` [download] Notice that it does an encode_entities() on the '&' in both of the '<' series. I either want XML::Twig to encode everything or nothing but not a partial encode.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: XML::Twig and HTML Entities by Anonymous Monk on Nov 12, 2004 at 20:19 UTC
Why not? Without an opening '<' a '>' is a normal char and doesn't need to encode().	[reply]
Re^4: XML::Twig and HTML Entities by blitzkrieg (Initiate) on Nov 12, 2004 at 21:28 UTC
Re^5: XML::Twig and HTML Entities by bpphillips (Friar) on Nov 13, 2004 at 01:47 UTC
Re: XML::Twig and HTML Entities by bpphillips (Friar) on Nov 12, 2004 at 20:20 UTC
This is valid XML (which is generated when you don't have the `output_text_filter=>'html'` option set: `<log><pre>won't escape properly - uggh!</pre></log>` [download] The XML spec says that > characters don't need to be escaped. Consequently, when you use the `output_text_filter=>'html'` it takes the valid XML and encodes `<` into `&lt;` and also encodes `>` into `>`.	[reply] [d/l] [select]