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TinyXML

TinyXML is a simple, small, C++ XML parser that can be easily integrated into other programs.

What it does.

In brief, TinyXML parses an XML document, and builds from that a Document Object Model (DOM) that can be read, modified, and saved.

XML stands for "eXtensible Markup Language." It allows you to create your own document markups. Where HTML does a very good job of marking documents for browsers, XML allows you to define any kind of document markup, for example a document that describes a "to do" list for an organizer application. XML is a very structured and convenient format. All those random file formats created to store application data can all be replaced with XML. One parser for everything.

The best place for the complete, correct, and quite frankly hard to read spec is at http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204/. An intro to XML (that I really like) can be found at http://skew.org/xml/tutorial.

There are different ways to access and interact with XML data. TinyXML uses a Document Object Model (DOM), meaning the XML data is parsed into a C++ objects that can be browsed and manipulated, and then written to disk or another output stream. You can also construct an XML document from scratch with C++ objects and write this to disk or another output stream.

TinyXML is designed to be easy and fast to learn. It is two headers and four cpp files. Simply add these to your project and off you go. There is an example file - xmltest.cpp - to get you started.

TinyXML is released under the ZLib license, so you can use it in open source or commercial code. The details of the license are at the top of every source file.

TinyXML attempts to be a flexible parser, but with truly correct and compliant XML output. TinyXML should compile on any reasonably C++ compliant system. It does not rely on exceptions or RTTI. It can be compiled with or without STL support. TinyXML fully supports the UTF-8 encoding, and the first 64k character entities.

What it doesn't do.

TinyXML doesn't parse or use DTDs (Document Type Definitions) or XSLs (eXtensible Stylesheet Language.) There are other parsers out there (check out www.sourceforge.org, search for XML) that are much more fully featured. But they are also much bigger, take longer to set up in your project, have a higher learning curve, and often have a more restrictive license. If you are working with browsers or have more complete XML needs, TinyXML is not the parser for you.

The following DTD syntax will not parse at this time in TinyXML:

@verbatim ]> @endverbatim

because TinyXML sees this as a !DOCTYPE node with an illegally embedded !ELEMENT node. This may be addressed in the future.

Tutorials.

For the impatient, here is a tutorial to get you going. A great way to get started, but it is worth your time to read this (very short) manual completely.

• @subpage tutorial0

Code Status.

TinyXML is mature, tested code. It is very stable. If you find bugs, please file a bug report on the sourceforge web site (www.sourceforge.net/projects/tinyxml). We'll get them straightened out as soon as possible.

There are some areas of improvement; please check sourceforge if you are interested in working on TinyXML.

Related Projects

TinyXML projects you may find useful! (Descriptions provided by the projects.)

• TinyXPath (http://tinyxpath.sourceforge.net). TinyXPath is a small footprint XPath syntax decoder, written in C++.
• TinyXML++ (http://code.google.com/p/ticpp/). TinyXML++ is a completely new interface to TinyXML that uses MANY of the C++ strengths. Templates, exceptions, and much better error handling.

Features

Using STL

TinyXML can be compiled to use or not use STL. When using STL, TinyXML uses the std::string class, and fully supports std::istream, std::ostream, operator<<, and operator>>. Many API methods have both 'const char*' and 'const std::string&' forms.

When STL support is compiled out, no STL files are included whatsoever. All the string classes are implemented by TinyXML itself. API methods all use the 'const char*' form for input.

Use the compile time #define:

TIXML_USE_STL

to compile one version or the other. This can be passed by the compiler, or set as the first line of "tinyxml.h".

Note: If compiling the test code in Linux, setting the environment variable TINYXML_USE_STL=YES/NO will control STL compilation. In the Windows project file, STL and non STL targets are provided. In your project, It's probably easiest to add the line "#define TIXML_USE_STL" as the first line of tinyxml.h.

UTF-8

TinyXML supports UTF-8 allowing to manipulate XML files in any language. TinyXML also supports "legacy mode" - the encoding used before UTF-8 support and probably best described as "extended ascii".

Normally, TinyXML will try to detect the correct encoding and use it. However, by setting the value of TIXML_DEFAULT_ENCODING in the header file, TinyXML can be forced to always use one encoding.

TinyXML will assume Legacy Mode until one of the following occurs:

1. If the non-standard but common "UTF-8 lead bytes" (0xef 0xbb 0xbf) begin the file or data stream, TinyXML will read it as UTF-8.
2. If the declaration tag is read, and it has an encoding="UTF-8", then TinyXML will read it as UTF-8.
3. If the declaration tag is read, and it has no encoding specified, then TinyXML will read it as UTF-8.
4. If the declaration tag is read, and it has an encoding="something else", then TinyXML will read it as Legacy Mode. In legacy mode, TinyXML will work as it did before. It's not clear what that mode does exactly, but old content should keep working.
5. Until one of the above criteria is met, TinyXML runs in Legacy Mode.

What happens if the encoding is incorrectly set or detected? TinyXML will try to read and pass through text seen as improperly encoded. You may get some strange results or mangled characters. You may want to force TinyXML to the correct mode.

You may force TinyXML to Legacy Mode by using LoadFile( TIXML_ENCODING_LEGACY ) or LoadFile( filename, TIXML_ENCODING_LEGACY ). You may force it to use legacy mode all the time by setting TIXML_DEFAULT_ENCODING = TIXML_ENCODING_LEGACY. Likewise, you may force it to TIXML_ENCODING_UTF8 with the same technique.

For English users, using English XML, UTF-8 is the same as low-ASCII. You don't need to be aware of UTF-8 or change your code in any way. You can think of UTF-8 as a "superset" of ASCII.

UTF-8 is not a double byte format - but it is a standard encoding of Unicode! TinyXML does not use or directly support wchar, TCHAR, or Microsoft's _UNICODE at this time. It is common to see the term "Unicode" improperly refer to UTF-16, a wide byte encoding of unicode. This is a source of confusion.

For "high-ascii" languages - everything not English, pretty much - TinyXML can handle all languages, at the same time, as long as the XML is encoded in UTF-8. That can be a little tricky, older programs and operating systems tend to use the "default" or "traditional" code page. Many apps (and almost all modern ones) can output UTF-8, but older or stubborn (or just broken) ones still output text in the default code page.

For example, Japanese systems traditionally use SHIFT-JIS encoding. Text encoded as SHIFT-JIS can not be read by TinyXML. A good text editor can import SHIFT-JIS and then save as UTF-8.

The Skew.org link does a great job covering the encoding issue.

The test file "utf8test.xml" is an XML containing English, Spanish, Russian, and Simplified Chinese. (Hopefully they are translated correctly). The file "utf8test.gif" is a screen capture of the XML file, rendered in IE. Note that if you don't have the correct fonts (Simplified Chinese or Russian) on your system, you won't see output that matches the GIF file even if you can parse it correctly. Also note that (at least on my Windows machine) console output is in a Western code page, so that Print() or printf() cannot correctly display the file. This is not a bug in TinyXML - just an OS issue. No data is lost or destroyed by TinyXML. The console just doesn't render UTF-8.

Entities

@verbatim & & < < > > " " ' ' @endverbatim

These are recognized when the XML document is read, and translated to there UTF-8 equivalents. For instance, text with the XML of:

@verbatim Far & Away @endverbatim

will have the Value() of "Far & Away" when queried from the TiXmlText object, and will be written back to the XML stream/file as an ampersand. Older versions of TinyXML "preserved" character entities, but the newer versions will translate them into characters.

Additionally, any character can be specified by its Unicode code point: The syntax " " or " " are both to the non-breaking space characher.

Printing

• Print( FILE* ). Output to a std-C stream, which includes all C files as well as stdout.

  • "Pretty prints", but you don't have control over printing options.
  • The output is streamed directly to the FILE object, so there is no memory overhead in the TinyXML code.
  • used by Print() and SaveFile()

• operator<<. Output to a c++ stream.

  • Integrates with standart C++ iostreams.
  • Outputs in "network printing" mode without line breaks. Good for network transmission and moving XML between C++ objects, but hard for a human to read.

• TiXmlPrinter. Output to a std::string or memory buffer.

  • API is less concise
  • Future printing options will be put here.
  • Printing may change slightly in future versions as it is refined and expanded.

Streams

C style output: - based on FILE* - the Print() and SaveFile() methods

Generates formatted output, with plenty of white space, intended to be as 
human-readable as possible. They are very fast, and tolerant of ill formed 
XML documents. For example, an XML document that contains 2 root elements 
and 2 declarations, will still print.

C style input: - based on FILE* - the Parse() and LoadFile() methods

A fast, tolerant read. Use whenever you don't need the C++ streams.

C++ style output: - based on std::ostream - operator<<

Generates condensed output, intended for network transmission rather than
readability. Depending on your system's implementation of the ostream class,
these may be somewhat slower. (Or may not.) Not tolerant of ill formed XML:
a document should contain the correct one root element. Additional root level
elements will not be streamed out.

C++ style input: - based on std::istream - operator>>

Reads XML from a stream, making it useful for network transmission. The tricky
part is knowing when the XML document is complete, since there will almost
certainly be other data in the stream. TinyXML will assume the XML data is
complete after it reads the root element. Put another way, documents that
are ill-constructed with more than one root element will not read correctly.
Also note that operator>> is somewhat slower than Parse, due to both 
implementation of the STL and limitations of TinyXML.

White space

It's an issue that hasn't been resolved to my satisfaction. TinyXML supports the first 2 approaches. Call TiXmlBase::SetCondenseWhiteSpace( bool ) to set the desired behavior. The default is to condense white space.

If you change the default, you should call TiXmlBase::SetCondenseWhiteSpace( bool ) before making any calls to Parse XML data, and I don't recommend changing it after it has been set.

Handles

Where browsing an XML document in a robust way, it is important to check for null returns from method calls. An error safe implementation can generate a lot of code like:

@verbatim TiXmlElement* root = document.FirstChildElement( "Document" ); if ( root ) { TiXmlElement* element = root->FirstChildElement( "Element" ); if ( element ) { TiXmlElement* child = element->FirstChildElement( "Child" ); if ( child ) { TiXmlElement* child2 = child->NextSiblingElement( "Child" ); if ( child2 ) { // Finally do something useful. @endverbatim

Handles have been introduced to clean this up. Using the TiXmlHandle class, the previous code reduces to:

@verbatim TiXmlHandle docHandle( &document ); TiXmlElement* child2 = docHandle.FirstChild( "Document" ).FirstChild( "Element" ).Child( "Child", 1 ).ToElement(); if ( child2 ) { // do something useful @endverbatim

Which is much easier to deal with. See TiXmlHandle for more information.

Row and Column tracking

TinyXML can tracks the row and column origin of all nodes and attributes in a text file. The TiXmlBase::Row() and TiXmlBase::Column() methods return the origin of the node in the source text. The correct tabs can be configured in TiXmlDocument::SetTabSize().

Using and Installing

To Compile and Run xmltest:

A Linux Makefile and a Windows Visual C++ .dsw file is provided. Simply compile and run. It will write the file demotest.xml to your disk and generate output on the screen. It also tests walking the DOM by printing out the number of nodes found using different techniques.

The Linux makefile is very generic and runs on many systems - it is currently tested on mingw and MacOSX. You do not need to run 'make depend'. The dependecies have been hard coded.

Windows project file for VC6

• tinyxml: tinyxml library, non-STL
• tinyxmlSTL: tinyxml library, STL
• tinyXmlTest: test app, non-STL
• tinyXmlTestSTL: test app, STL

Makefile

PROFILE, DEBUG, and TINYXML_USE_STL. Details (such that they are) are in the makefile.

In the tinyxml directory, type "make clean" then "make". The executable file 'xmltest' will be created.

To Use in an Application:

Add tinyxml.cpp, tinyxml.h, tinyxmlerror.cpp, tinyxmlparser.cpp, tinystr.cpp, and tinystr.h to your project or make file. That's it! It should compile on any reasonably compliant C++ system. You do not need to enable exceptions or RTTI for TinyXML.

How TinyXML works.

An example is probably the best way to go. Take: @verbatim <?xml version="1.0" standalone=no> Go to the Toy store! Do bills @endverbatim

Its not much of a To Do list, but it will do. To read this file (say "demo.xml") you would create a document, and parse it in: @verbatim TiXmlDocument doc( "demo.xml" ); doc.LoadFile(); @endverbatim

And its ready to go. Now lets look at some lines and how they relate to the DOM.

@verbatim

Documentation

License

References

Contributors, Contacts, and a Brief History