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 unless you have a requirement to maintain TinyXML-1 code. 67 68TinyXML-2 uses a similar API to TinyXML-1 and the same 69rich test cases. But the implementation of the parser is completely re-written 70to make it more appropriate for use in a game. It uses less memory, is faster, 71and uses far fewer memory allocations. 72 73TinyXML-2 has no requirement for STL, but has also dropped all STL support. All 74strings are query and set as 'const char*'. This allows the use of internal 75allocators, and keeps the code much simpler. 76 77Both parsers: 78 791. Simple to use with similar APIs. 802. DOM based parser. 813. UTF-8 Unicode support. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8 82 83Advantages of TinyXML-2 84 851. The focus of all future dev. 862. Many fewer memory allocation (1/10th to 1/100th), uses less memory 87 (about 40% of TinyXML-1), and faster. 883. No STL requirement. 894. More modern C++, including a proper namespace. 905. Proper and useful handling of whitespace 91 92Advantages of TinyXML-1 93 941. Support for some C++ STL conventions: streams and strings 952. Very mature and well debugged code base. 96 97Features 98-------- 99 100### Memory Model 101 102An XMLDocument is a C++ object like any other, that can be on the stack, or 103new'd and deleted on the heap. 104 105However, any sub-node of the Document, XMLElement, XMLText, etc, can only 106be created by calling the appropriate XMLDocument::NewElement, NewText, etc. 107method. Although you have pointers to these objects, they are still owned 108by the Document. When the Document is deleted, so are all the nodes it contains. 109 110### White Space 111 112#### Whitespace Preservation (default) 113 114Microsoft has an excellent article on white space: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms256097.aspx 115 116By default, TinyXML-2 preserves white space in a (hopefully) sane way that is almost compliant with the 117spec. (TinyXML-1 used a completely different model, much more similar to 'collapse', below.) 118 119As a first step, all newlines / carriage-returns / line-feeds are normalized to a 120line-feed character, as required by the XML spec. 121 122White space in text is preserved. For example: 123 124 <element> Hello, World</element> 125 126The leading space before the "Hello" and the double space after the comma are 127preserved. Line-feeds are preserved, as in this example: 128 129 <element> Hello again, 130 World</element> 131 132However, white space between elements is **not** preserved. Although not strictly 133compliant, tracking and reporting inter-element space is awkward, and not normally 134valuable. TinyXML-2 sees these as the same XML: 135 136 <document> 137 <data>1</data> 138 <data>2</data> 139 <data>3</data> 140 </document> 141 142 <document><data>1</data><data>2</data><data>3</data></document> 143 144#### Whitespace Collapse 145 146For some applications, it is preferable to collapse whitespace. Collapsing 147whitespace gives you "HTML-like" behavior, which is sometimes more suitable 148for hand typed documents. 149 150TinyXML-2 supports this with the 'whitespace' parameter to the XMLDocument constructor. 151(The default is to preserve whitespace, as described above.) 152 153However, you may also use COLLAPSE_WHITESPACE, which will: 154 155* Remove leading and trailing whitespace 156* Convert newlines and line-feeds into a space character 157* Collapse a run of any number of space characters into a single space character 158 159Note that (currently) there is a performance impact for using COLLAPSE_WHITESPACE. 160It essentially causes the XML to be parsed twice. 161 162#### Error Reporting 163 164TinyXML-2 reports the line number of any errors in an XML document that 165cannot be parsed correctly. In addition, all nodes (elements, declarations, 166text, comments etc.) and attributes have a line number recorded as they are parsed. 167This allows an application that performs additional validation of the parsed 168XML document (e.g. application-implemented DTD validation) to report 169line number information in it's errors. 170 171### Entities 172 173TinyXML-2 recognizes the pre-defined "character entities", meaning special 174characters. Namely: 175 176 & & 177 < < 178 > > 179 " " 180 ' ' 181 182These are recognized when the XML document is read, and translated to their 183UTF-8 equivalents. For instance, text with the XML of: 184 185 Far & Away 186 187will have the Value() of "Far & Away" when queried from the XMLText object, 188and will be written back to the XML stream/file as an ampersand. 189 190Additionally, any character can be specified by its Unicode code point: 191The syntax ` ` or ` ` are both to the non-breaking space character. 192This is called a 'numeric character reference'. Any numeric character reference 193that isn't one of the special entities above, will be read, but written as a 194regular code point. The output is correct, but the entity syntax isn't preserved. 195 196### Printing 197 198#### Print to file 199You can directly use the convenience function: 200 201 XMLDocument doc; 202 ... 203 doc.SaveFile( "foo.xml" ); 204 205Or the XMLPrinter class: 206 207 XMLPrinter printer( fp ); 208 doc.Print( &printer ); 209 210#### Print to memory 211Printing to memory is supported by the XMLPrinter. 212 213 XMLPrinter printer; 214 doc.Print( &printer ); 215 // printer.CStr() has a const char* to the XML 216 217#### Print without an XMLDocument 218 219When loading, an XML parser is very useful. However, sometimes 220when saving, it just gets in the way. The code is often set up 221for streaming, and constructing the DOM is just overhead. 222 223The Printer supports the streaming case. The following code 224prints out a trivially simple XML file without ever creating 225an XML document. 226 227 XMLPrinter printer( fp ); 228 printer.OpenElement( "foo" ); 229 printer.PushAttribute( "foo", "bar" ); 230 printer.CloseElement(); 231 232Examples 233-------- 234 235#### Load and parse an XML file. 236 237 /* ------ Example 1: Load and parse an XML file. ---- */ 238 { 239 XMLDocument doc; 240 doc.LoadFile( "dream.xml" ); 241 } 242 243#### Lookup information. 244 245 /* ------ Example 2: Lookup information. ---- */ 246 { 247 XMLDocument doc; 248 doc.LoadFile( "dream.xml" ); 249 250 // Structure of the XML file: 251 // - Element "PLAY" the root Element, which is the 252 // FirstChildElement of the Document 253 // - - Element "TITLE" child of the root PLAY Element 254 // - - - Text child of the TITLE Element 255 256 // Navigate to the title, using the convenience function, 257 // with a dangerous lack of error checking. 258 const char* title = doc.FirstChildElement( "PLAY" )->FirstChildElement( "TITLE" )->GetText(); 259 printf( "Name of play (1): %s\n", title ); 260 261 // Text is just another Node to TinyXML-2. The more 262 // general way to get to the XMLText: 263 XMLText* textNode = doc.FirstChildElement( "PLAY" )->FirstChildElement( "TITLE" )->FirstChild()->ToText(); 264 title = textNode->Value(); 265 printf( "Name of play (2): %s\n", title ); 266 } 267 268Using and Installing 269-------------------- 270 271There are 2 files in TinyXML-2: 272* tinyxml2.cpp 273* tinyxml2.h 274 275And additionally a test file: 276* xmltest.cpp 277 278Simply compile and run. There is a visual studio 2015 project included, a simple Makefile, 279an Xcode project, a Code::Blocks project, and a cmake CMakeLists.txt included to help you. 280The top of tinyxml.h even has a simple g++ command line if you are are *nix and don't want 281to use a build system. 282 283Versioning 284---------- 285 286TinyXML-2 uses semantic versioning. http://semver.org/ Releases are now tagged in github. 287 288Note that the major version will (probably) change fairly rapidly. API changes are fairly 289common. 290 291Documentation 292------------- 293 294The documentation is build with Doxygen, using the 'dox' 295configuration file. 296 297License 298------- 299 300TinyXML-2 is released under the zlib license: 301 302This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied 303warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any 304damages arising from the use of this software. 305 306Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any 307purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and 308redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions: 309 3101. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must 311not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this 312software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation 313would be appreciated but is not required. 3142. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and 315must not be misrepresented as being the original software. 3163. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source 317distribution. 318 319Contributors 320------------ 321 322Thanks very much to everyone who sends suggestions, bugs, ideas, and 323encouragement. It all helps, and makes this project fun. 324 325The original TinyXML-1 has many contributors, who all deserve thanks 326in shaping what is a very successful library. Extra thanks to Yves 327Berquin and Andrew Ellerton who were key contributors. 328 329TinyXML-2 grew from that effort. Lee Thomason is the original author 330of TinyXML-2 (and TinyXML-1) but TinyXML-2 has been and is being improved 331by many contributors. 332 333Thanks to John Mackay at http://john.mackay.rosalilastudio.com for the TinyXML-2 logo! 334 335 336
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