This section is directly intended to help programmers
gettingbootstrappedusing the XML tollkit from the C language. It is not
intended tobeextensive. I hope the automatically generated documents will
providethecompleteness required, but as a separate set of documents. The
interfacesofthe XML parser are by principle low level, Those interested in a
higherlevelAPI should look at DOM. The parser interfaces
forXMLareseparated from the HTMLparserinterfaces. Let's have a
look at how the XML parser can becalled: Usually, the first thing to do is to read an XML input. The
parseracceptsdocuments either from in-memory strings or from files. The
functionsaredefined in "parser.h": xmlDocPtr xmlParseMemory(char *buffer, int size);
Parse a null-terminated string containing the document.
xmlDocPtr xmlParseFile(const char *filename);
Parse an XML document contained in a (possibly compressed)file.
The parser returns a pointer to the document structure (or NULL in
caseoffailure). Invoking the parser: the push methodIn order for the application to keep the control when the document
isbeingfetched (which is common for GUI based programs) libxml2 provides
apushinterface, too, as of version 1.8.3. Here are the interfacefunctions: xmlParserCtxtPtr xmlCreatePushParserCtxt(xmlSAXHandlerPtr sax,
void *user_data,
const char *chunk,
int size,
const char *filename);
int xmlParseChunk (xmlParserCtxtPtr ctxt,
const char *chunk,
int size,
int terminate); and here is a simple example showing how to use the interface: FILE *f;
f = fopen(filename, "r");
if (f != NULL) {
int res, size = 1024;
char chars[1024];
xmlParserCtxtPtr ctxt;
res = fread(chars, 1, 4, f);
if (res > 0) {
ctxt = xmlCreatePushParserCtxt(NULL, NULL,
chars, res, filename);
while ((res = fread(chars, 1, size, f)) > 0) {
xmlParseChunk(ctxt, chars, res, 0);
}
xmlParseChunk(ctxt, chars, 0, 1);
doc = ctxt->myDoc;
xmlFreeParserCtxt(ctxt);
}
} The HTML parser embedded into libxml2 also has a push
interface;thefunctions are just prefixed by "html" rather than "xml". Invoking the parser: the SAX interfaceThe tree-building interface makes the parser memory-hungry,
firstloadingthe document in memory and then building the tree itself. Reading
adocumentwithout building the tree is possible using the SAX interfaces
(seeSAX.h andJamesHenstridge'sdocumentation).
Note also that the push interface can belimited to SAX:just use the two first
arguments ofxmlCreatePushParserCtxt() . The other way to get an XML tree in memory is by building
it.Basicallythere is a set of functions dedicated to building new
elements.(These arealso described in <libxml/tree.h>.) For example,
here is apiece ofcode that produces the XML document used in the previous
examples: #include <libxml/tree.h>
xmlDocPtr doc;
xmlNodePtr tree, subtree;
doc = xmlNewDoc("1.0");
doc->children = xmlNewDocNode(doc, NULL, "EXAMPLE", NULL);
xmlSetProp(doc->children, "prop1", "gnome is great");
xmlSetProp(doc->children, "prop2", "& linux too");
tree = xmlNewChild(doc->children, NULL, "head", NULL);
subtree = xmlNewChild(tree, NULL, "title", "Welcome to Gnome");
tree = xmlNewChild(doc->children, NULL, "chapter", NULL);
subtree = xmlNewChild(tree, NULL, "title", "The Linux adventure");
subtree = xmlNewChild(tree, NULL, "p", "bla bla bla ...");
subtree = xmlNewChild(tree, NULL, "image", NULL);
xmlSetProp(subtree, "href", "linus.gif"); Not really rocket science ... Basically by including"tree.h"yourcode
has access to the internal structure of all the elementsof the tree.The names
should be somewhat simple
likeparent,children,
next,prev,properties,
etc... For example, stillwith the previousexample: doc->children->children->children
points to the title element, doc->children->children->next->children->children points to the text node containing the chapter title
"TheLinuxadventure". NOTE: XML allows PIs and
commentstobepresent before the document root, so
doc->children maypointto an element which is not the document
Root Element; afunctionxmlDocGetRootElement() was added for this
purpose. Functions are provided for reading and writing the document content.Hereis
an excerpt from the tree API: xmlAttrPtr xmlSetProp(xmlNodePtr node, const xmlChar
*name,constxmlChar *value);
This sets (or changes) an attribute carried by an ELEMENT
node.Thevalue can be NULL.
const xmlChar *xmlGetProp(xmlNodePtr node,
constxmlChar*name);
This function returns a pointer to new copy of thepropertycontent.
Note that the user must deallocate the result.
Two functions are provided for reading and writing the text
associatedwithelements: xmlNodePtr xmlStringGetNodeList(xmlDocPtr doc,
constxmlChar*value);
This function takes an "external" string and converts it toonetext
node or possibly to a list of entity and text nodes.Allnon-predefined
entity references like &Gnome; will bestoredinternally as entity
nodes, hence the result of the function maynot bea single node.
xmlChar *xmlNodeListGetString(xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNodePtr
list,intinLine);
This function is the inverseofxmlStringGetNodeList() .
It generates a newstringcontaining the content of the text and entity
nodes. Note theextraargument inLine. If this argument is set to 1, the
function willexpandentity references. For example, instead of
returning the&Gnome;XML encoding in the string, it will substitute
it with itsvalue (say,"GNU Network Object Model Environment").
Basically 3 options are possible: void xmlDocDumpMemory(xmlDocPtr cur,
xmlChar**mem,int*size);
Returns a buffer into which the document has been saved.
extern void xmlDocDump(FILE *f, xmlDocPtr doc);
Dumps a document to an open file descriptor.
int xmlSaveFile(const char *filename, xmlDocPtr cur);
Saves the document to a file. In this case,
thecompressioninterface is triggered if it has been turned on.
The library transparently handles compression when
doingfile-basedaccesses. The level of compression on saves can be turned on
eithergloballyor individually for one file: int xmlGetDocCompressMode (xmlDocPtr doc);
Gets the document compression ratio (0-9).
void xmlSetDocCompressMode (xmlDocPtr doc, int mode);
Sets the document compression ratio.
int xmlGetCompressMode(void);
Gets the default compression ratio.
void xmlSetCompressMode(int mode);
Sets the default compression ratio.
Daniel Veillard |