XML Help..

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

I am trying to parse a XML which has been giving me problems for the last day or two... However, when i run the script i unable to get results. The

children->hasChildNodes() always return 1 even if there are not child nodes?

children->textContent($name) returns the text of all the nodes including the subnodes...

$children->attributes() does not return the attribute pussycat...


use XML::LibXML;
use Data::Dumper qw(Dumper);

my $parser = XML::LibXML->new;
my $doc    = $parser->parse_file('pets.xml') or die;
my $root   = $doc->documentElement();
my $value  = $root->nodeName;
 


my $name;
my $text;
my $boolean;
my $value;
my $node;
my $attribute;
my @att;
my $child;
 
sub buildtree
{
  my $node = shift;
  foreach my $children (  $node->getChildnodes )
  {
     if( $children->nodeType eq &XML_ELEMENT_NODE )
     {
       $name      = $children->nodeName;
       $node      = $children->nodeType;
       $text      = $children->textContent($name);
       @att       = $children->attributes();
       $child     = $children->hasChildNodes();
       print "Name:$name\n";
       print "Text:$text\n";
       print "attrib:$attribute\n";
       print "Attribute:@att\n";
       print "Has Child:$child\n";
     }
     buildtree( $children );
  }
}
buildtree($root);


<?xml version='1.0'?>
<pets>
  <cat attribute="pussycat">
    <name>Madness</name>
    <price>150</price>
  </cat>

  <dog>
    <name>Maggie</name>
    <owner>Rosie</owner>
  </dog>

</pets>
[download]

Comment on XML Help.. Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: XML Help.. by Corion (Patriarch) on Jul 12, 2010 at 20:22 UTC
I can answer at least your first question. A `text()` node is also a child node. If you want to search for certain nodes, I really recommend using XPath queries. The following code works for me and also finds the attributes. You didn't say how your code didn't find the attribute. #!perl -w use strict; use XML::LibXML; use Data::Dumper qw(Dumper); my $parser = XML::LibXML->new; my $doc = $parser->load_xml(string => <<'XML') or die; <?xml version='1.0'?> <pets> <cat attribute="pussycat"> <name>Madness</name> <price>150</price> </cat> <dog> <name>Maggie</name> <owner>Rosie</owner> </dog> </pets> XML my $root = $doc->documentElement(); my $value = $root->nodeName; sub buildtree { my $node = shift; if (! ref $node) { print "Not a reference: '$node'\n"; return }; foreach my $child ( $node->getChildnodes ) { if( $child->nodeType eq &XML_ELEMENT_NODE ) { my $name; my $text; my $boolean; my $value; my $node; my @att; my $name = $child->nodeName; my $node = $child->nodeType; my $text = $child->textContent($name); my @att = map { sprintf "%s -> %s", $_->name, $_->value } + $child->attributes(); my $has_children = $child->hasChildNodes(); print "Name:$name\n"; print "Text:$text\n"; print "Attributes:@att\n"; print "Has Child:$child\n"; } buildtree( $child ); } } buildtree($root); [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: XML Help.. by Jenda (Abbot) on Jul 13, 2010 at 10:25 UTC
<quote>I can answer at least your first question. A text() node is also a child node.</quote> Which makes the method prettymuch useless. Jenda Enoch was right! Enjoy the last years of Rome.	[reply]