1TinyXML-2 2========= 3 4[](https://travis-ci.org/leethomason/tinyxml2) [](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/leethomason/tinyxml2) 5 6 7 8TinyXML-2 is a simple, small, efficient, C++ XML parser that can be 9easily integrated into other programs. 10 11The master is hosted on github: 12https://github.com/leethomason/tinyxml2 13 14The online HTML version of these docs: 15http://leethomason.github.io/tinyxml2/ 16 17Examples are in the "related pages" tab of the HTML docs. 18 19What it does. 20------------- 21 22In brief, TinyXML-2 parses an XML document, and builds from that a 23Document Object Model (DOM) that can be read, modified, and saved. 24 25XML stands for "eXtensible Markup Language." It is a general purpose 26human and machine readable markup language to describe arbitrary data. 27All those random file formats created to store application data can 28all be replaced with XML. One parser for everything. 29 30http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML 31 32There are different ways to access and interact with XML data. 33TinyXML-2 uses a Document Object Model (DOM), meaning the XML data is parsed 34into a C++ objects that can be browsed and manipulated, and then 35written to disk or another output stream. You can also construct an XML document 36from scratch with C++ objects and write this to disk or another output 37stream. You can even use TinyXML-2 to stream XML programmatically from 38code without creating a document first. 39 40TinyXML-2 is designed to be easy and fast to learn. It is one header and 41one cpp file. Simply add these to your project and off you go. 42There is an example file - xmltest.cpp - to get you started. 43 44TinyXML-2 is released under the ZLib license, 45so you can use it in open source or commercial code. The details 46of the license are at the top of every source file. 47 48TinyXML-2 attempts to be a flexible parser, but with truly correct and 49compliant XML output. TinyXML-2 should compile on any reasonably C++ 50compliant system. It does not rely on exceptions, RTTI, or the STL. 51 52What it doesn't do. 53------------------- 54 55TinyXML-2 doesn't parse or use DTDs (Document Type Definitions) or XSLs 56(eXtensible Stylesheet Language.) There are other parsers out there 57that are much more fully featured. But they are also much bigger, 58take longer to set up in your project, have a higher learning curve, 59and often have a more restrictive license. If you are working with 60browsers or have more complete XML needs, TinyXML-2 is not the parser for you. 61 62TinyXML-1 vs. TinyXML-2 63----------------------- 64 65TinyXML-2 is now the focus of all development, well tested, and your 66best choice between the two APIs. At this point, unless you are maintaining 67legacy code, you should choose TinyXML-2. 68 69TinyXML-2 uses a similar API to TinyXML-1 and the same 70rich test cases. But the implementation of the parser is completely re-written 71to make it more appropriate for use in a game. It uses less memory, is faster, 72and uses far fewer memory allocations. 73 74TinyXML-2 has no requirement or support for STL. By returning `const char*` 75TinyXML-2 can be much more efficient with memory usage. (TinyXML-1 did support 76and use STL, but consumed much more memory for the DOM representation.) 77 78Features 79-------- 80 81### Code Page 82 83TinyXML-2 uses UTF-8 exclusively when interpreting XML. All XML is assumed to 84be UTF-8. 85 86Filenames for loading / saving are passed unchanged to the underlying OS. 87 88### Memory Model 89 90An XMLDocument is a C++ object like any other, that can be on the stack, or 91new'd and deleted on the heap. 92 93However, any sub-node of the Document, XMLElement, XMLText, etc, can only 94be created by calling the appropriate XMLDocument::NewElement, NewText, etc. 95method. Although you have pointers to these objects, they are still owned 96by the Document. When the Document is deleted, so are all the nodes it contains. 97 98### White Space 99 100#### Whitespace Preservation (default) 101 102Microsoft has an excellent article on white space: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms256097.aspx 103 104By default, TinyXML-2 preserves white space in a (hopefully) sane way that is almost compliant with the 105spec. (TinyXML-1 used a completely different model, much more similar to 'collapse', below.) 106 107As a first step, all newlines / carriage-returns / line-feeds are normalized to a 108line-feed character, as required by the XML spec. 109 110White space in text is preserved. For example: 111 112 <element> Hello, World</element> 113 114The leading space before the "Hello" and the double space after the comma are 115preserved. Line-feeds are preserved, as in this example: 116 117 <element> Hello again, 118 World</element> 119 120However, white space between elements is **not** preserved. Although not strictly 121compliant, tracking and reporting inter-element space is awkward, and not normally 122valuable. TinyXML-2 sees these as the same XML: 123 124 <document> 125 <data>1</data> 126 <data>2</data> 127 <data>3</data> 128 </document> 129 130 <document><data>1</data><data>2</data><data>3</data></document> 131 132#### Whitespace Collapse 133 134For some applications, it is preferable to collapse whitespace. Collapsing 135whitespace gives you "HTML-like" behavior, which is sometimes more suitable 136for hand typed documents. 137 138TinyXML-2 supports this with the 'whitespace' parameter to the XMLDocument constructor. 139(The default is to preserve whitespace, as described above.) 140 141However, you may also use COLLAPSE_WHITESPACE, which will: 142 143* Remove leading and trailing whitespace 144* Convert newlines and line-feeds into a space character 145* Collapse a run of any number of space characters into a single space character 146 147Note that (currently) there is a performance impact for using COLLAPSE_WHITESPACE. 148It essentially causes the XML to be parsed twice. 149 150#### Error Reporting 151 152TinyXML-2 reports the line number of any errors in an XML document that 153cannot be parsed correctly. In addition, all nodes (elements, declarations, 154text, comments etc.) and attributes have a line number recorded as they are parsed. 155This allows an application that performs additional validation of the parsed 156XML document (e.g. application-implemented DTD validation) to report 157line number information for error messages. 158 159### Entities 160 161TinyXML-2 recognizes the pre-defined "character entities", meaning special 162characters. Namely: 163 164 & & 165 < < 166 > > 167 " " 168 ' ' 169 170These are recognized when the XML document is read, and translated to their 171UTF-8 equivalents. For instance, text with the XML of: 172 173 Far & Away 174 175will have the Value() of "Far & Away" when queried from the XMLText object, 176and will be written back to the XML stream/file as an ampersand. 177 178Additionally, any character can be specified by its Unicode code point: 179The syntax ` ` or ` ` are both to the non-breaking space character. 180This is called a 'numeric character reference'. Any numeric character reference 181that isn't one of the special entities above, will be read, but written as a 182regular code point. The output is correct, but the entity syntax isn't preserved. 183 184### Printing 185 186#### Print to file 187You can directly use the convenience function: 188 189 XMLDocument doc; 190 ... 191 doc.SaveFile( "foo.xml" ); 192 193Or the XMLPrinter class: 194 195 XMLPrinter printer( fp ); 196 doc.Print( &printer ); 197 198#### Print to memory 199Printing to memory is supported by the XMLPrinter. 200 201 XMLPrinter printer; 202 doc.Print( &printer ); 203 // printer.CStr() has a const char* to the XML 204 205#### Print without an XMLDocument 206 207When loading, an XML parser is very useful. However, sometimes 208when saving, it just gets in the way. The code is often set up 209for streaming, and constructing the DOM is just overhead. 210 211The Printer supports the streaming case. The following code 212prints out a trivially simple XML file without ever creating 213an XML document. 214 215 XMLPrinter printer( fp ); 216 printer.OpenElement( "foo" ); 217 printer.PushAttribute( "foo", "bar" ); 218 printer.CloseElement(); 219 220Examples 221-------- 222 223#### Load and parse an XML file. 224 225 /* ------ Example 1: Load and parse an XML file. ---- */ 226 { 227 XMLDocument doc; 228 doc.LoadFile( "dream.xml" ); 229 } 230 231#### Lookup information. 232 233 /* ------ Example 2: Lookup information. ---- */ 234 { 235 XMLDocument doc; 236 doc.LoadFile( "dream.xml" ); 237 238 // Structure of the XML file: 239 // - Element "PLAY" the root Element, which is the 240 // FirstChildElement of the Document 241 // - - Element "TITLE" child of the root PLAY Element 242 // - - - Text child of the TITLE Element 243 244 // Navigate to the title, using the convenience function, 245 // with a dangerous lack of error checking. 246 const char* title = doc.FirstChildElement( "PLAY" )->FirstChildElement( "TITLE" )->GetText(); 247 printf( "Name of play (1): %s\n", title ); 248 249 // Text is just another Node to TinyXML-2. The more 250 // general way to get to the XMLText: 251 XMLText* textNode = doc.FirstChildElement( "PLAY" )->FirstChildElement( "TITLE" )->FirstChild()->ToText(); 252 title = textNode->Value(); 253 printf( "Name of play (2): %s\n", title ); 254 } 255 256Using and Installing 257-------------------- 258 259There are 2 files in TinyXML-2: 260* tinyxml2.cpp 261* tinyxml2.h 262 263And additionally a test file: 264* xmltest.cpp 265 266Simply compile and run. There is a visual studio 2017 project included, a simple Makefile, 267an Xcode project, a Code::Blocks project, and a cmake CMakeLists.txt included to help you. 268The top of tinyxml.h even has a simple g++ command line if you are are Unix/Linuk/BSD and 269don't want to use a build system. 270 271Versioning 272---------- 273 274TinyXML-2 uses semantic versioning. http://semver.org/ Releases are now tagged in github. 275 276Note that the major version will (probably) change fairly rapidly. API changes are fairly 277common. 278 279Documentation 280------------- 281 282The documentation is build with Doxygen, using the 'dox' 283configuration file. 284 285License 286------- 287 288TinyXML-2 is released under the zlib license: 289 290This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied 291warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any 292damages arising from the use of this software. 293 294Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any 295purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and 296redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions: 297 2981. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must 299not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this 300software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation 301would be appreciated but is not required. 3022. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and 303must not be misrepresented as being the original software. 3043. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source 305distribution. 306 307Contributors 308------------ 309 310Thanks very much to everyone who sends suggestions, bugs, ideas, and 311encouragement. It all helps, and makes this project fun. 312 313The original TinyXML-1 has many contributors, who all deserve thanks 314in shaping what is a very successful library. Extra thanks to Yves 315Berquin and Andrew Ellerton who were key contributors. 316 317TinyXML-2 grew from that effort. Lee Thomason is the original author 318of TinyXML-2 (and TinyXML-1) but TinyXML-2 has been and is being improved 319by many contributors. 320 321Thanks to John Mackay at http://john.mackay.rosalilastudio.com for the TinyXML-2 logo! 322 323 324
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