XML::Struct - Represent XML as data structure preserving element order
version 0.15
use XML::Struct qw(readXML writeXML simpleXML removeXMLAttr); my $xml = readXML( "input.xml" ); # [ root => { xmlns => 'http://example.org/' }, [ '!', [ x => {}, [42] ] ] ] my $doc = writeXML( $xml ); # <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> # <root xmlns="http://example.org/">!<x>42</x></root> my $simple = simpleXML( $xml, root => 'record' ); # { record => { xmlns => 'http://example.org/', x => 42 } } my $xml2 = removeXMLAttr($xml); # [ root => [ '!', [ x => [42] ] ] ]
XML::Struct implements a mapping between XML and Perl data structures. By default, the mapping preserves element order, so it also suits for "document-oriented" XML. In short, an XML element is represented as array reference with three parts:
[ $name => \%attributes, \@children ]
This data structure corresponds to the abstract data model of MicroXML, a simplified subset of XML.
If your XML documents don't contain relevant attributes, you can also choose to map to this format:
[ $name => \@children ]
Both parsing (with XML::Struct::Reader or function readXML) and serializing (with XML::Struct::Writer or function writeXML) are fully based on XML::LibXML, so performance is better than XML::Simple and similar to XML::LibXML::Simple.
readXML
writeXML
Parse XML as stream into XML data structures.
Write XML data structures to XML streams for serializing, SAX processing, or creating a DOM object.
The following functions are exported on request:
Read an XML document with XML::Struct::Reader. The type of source (string, filename, URL, IO Handle...) is detected automatically. Options not known to XML::Struct::Reader are passed to XML::LibXML::Reader.
Write an XML document/element with XML::Struct::Writer.
Transform an XML document/element into simple key-value format as known from XML::Simple: Attributes and child elements are treated as hash keys with their content as value. Text elements without attributes are converted to text and empty elements without attributes are converted to empty hashes. The following options are supported:
Keep the root element (just as option KeepRoot in XML::Simple). In addition one can set the name of the root element if a non-numeric value is passed.
KeepRoot
Only transform to a given depth. See XML::Struct::Reader for documentation.
All elements below the given depth are returned unmodified (not cloned) as array elements:
$data = simpleXML($xml, depth => 2) $content = $data->{x}->{y}; # array or scalar (if existing)
Assume input without attributes if set to a true value. The special value remove will first remove attributes, so the following three are equivalent:
remove
my @children = (['a'],['b']); simpleXML( [ $name => \@children ], attributes => 0 ); simpleXML( removeXMLAttr( [ $name => \%attributes, \@children ] ), attributes => 0 ); simpleXML( [ $name => \%attributes, \@children ], attributes => 'remove' );
Key attributes (KeyAttr in XML::Simple) and the option ForceArray are not supported yet.
KeyAttr
ForceArray
Transform XML structure with attributes to XML structure without attributes. The function does not modify the passed element but creates a modified copy.
To give an example, with XML::Struct::Reader, this XML document:
<root> <foo>text</foo> <bar key="value"> text <doz/> </bar> </root>
is transformed to this structure:
[ "root", { }, [ [ "foo", { }, "text" ], [ "bar", { key => "value" }, [ "text", [ "doz", { }, [ ] ] ] ] ]
This module also supports a simple key-value (aka "data-oriented") format, as used by XML::Simple. With option simple (or function simpleXML) the document given above woule be transformed to this structure:
simple
simpleXML
{ foo => "text", bar => { key => "value", doz => {} } }
This module was first created to be used in Catmandu::XML and turned out to also become a replacement for XML::Simple.
See XML::Twig for another popular and powerfull module for stream-based processing of XML documents.
See XML::Smart, XML::Hash::LX, XML::Parser::Style::ETree, XML::Fast, and XML::Structured for different representations of XML data as data structures (feel free to implement converters from/to XML::Struct). See
See XML::GenericJSON for an (outdated and incomplete) attempt to capture more parts of XML Infoset in another data structure.
See JSONx for a kind of reverse direction (JSON in XML).
Jakob Voß
This software is copyright (c) 2013 by Jakob Voß.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.
To install XML::Struct, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm XML::Struct
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install XML::Struct
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.