tinyxml2

readme.md (11845B)

---

 TinyXML-2
 =========
 
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 ![TinyXML-2 Logo](http://www.grinninglizard.com/tinyxml2/TinyXML2_small.png)
 
 TinyXML-2 is a simple, small, efficient, C++ XML parser that can be
 easily integrated into other programs.
 
 The master is hosted on github:
 https://github.com/leethomason/tinyxml2
 
 The online HTML version of these docs:
 http://leethomason.github.io/tinyxml2/
 
 Examples are in the "related pages" tab of the HTML docs.
 
 What it does.
 -------------
 
 In brief, TinyXML-2 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 is a general purpose
 human and machine readable markup language to describe arbitrary data.
 All those random file formats created to store application data can
 all be replaced with XML. One parser for everything.
 
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML
 
 There are different ways to access and interact with XML data.
 TinyXML-2 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. You can even use TinyXML-2 to stream XML programmatically from
 code without creating a document first.
 
 TinyXML-2 is designed to be easy and fast to learn. It is one header and
 one cpp file. Simply add these to your project and off you go.
 There is an example file - xmltest.cpp - to get you started.
 
 TinyXML-2 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-2 attempts to be a flexible parser, but with truly correct and
 compliant XML output. TinyXML-2 should compile on any reasonably C++
 compliant system. It does not rely on exceptions, RTTI, or the STL.
 
 What it doesn't do.
 -------------------
 
 TinyXML-2 doesn't parse or use DTDs (Document Type Definitions) or XSLs
 (eXtensible Stylesheet Language.) There are other parsers out there
 that are much more fully featured. But they are generally bigger and
 more difficult to use. If you are working with
 browsers or have more complete XML needs, TinyXML-2 is not the parser for you.
 
 TinyXML-1 vs. TinyXML-2
 -----------------------
 
 TinyXML-2 is now the focus of all development, well tested, and your
 best choice between the two APIs. At this point, unless you are maintaining
 legacy code, you should choose TinyXML-2.
 
 TinyXML-2 uses a similar API to TinyXML-1 and the same
 rich test cases. But the implementation of the parser is completely re-written
 to make it more appropriate for use in a game. It uses less memory, is faster,
 and uses far fewer memory allocations.
 
 TinyXML-2 has no requirement or support for STL. By returning `const char*`
 TinyXML-2 can be much more efficient with memory usage. (TinyXML-1 did support
 and use STL, but consumed much more memory for the DOM representation.)
 
 Features
 --------
 
 ### Code Page
 
 TinyXML-2 uses UTF-8 exclusively when interpreting XML. All XML is assumed to
 be UTF-8.
 
 Filenames for loading / saving are passed unchanged to the underlying OS.
 
 ### Memory Model
 
 An XMLDocument is a C++ object like any other, that can be on the stack, or
 new'd and deleted on the heap.
 
 However, any sub-node of the Document, XMLElement, XMLText, etc, can only
 be created by calling the appropriate XMLDocument::NewElement, NewText, etc.
 method. Although you have pointers to these objects, they are still owned
 by the Document. When the Document is deleted, so are all the nodes it contains.
 
 ### White Space
 
 #### Whitespace Preservation (default)
 
 Microsoft has an excellent article on white space: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms256097.aspx
 
 By default, TinyXML-2 preserves white space in a (hopefully) sane way that is almost compliant with the
 spec. (TinyXML-1 used a completely different model, much more similar to 'collapse', below.)
 
 As a first step, all newlines / carriage-returns / line-feeds are normalized to a
 line-feed character, as required by the XML spec.
 
 White space in text is preserved. For example:
 
 	<element> Hello,  World</element>
 
 The leading space before the "Hello" and the double space after the comma are
 preserved. Line-feeds are preserved, as in this example:
 
 	<element> Hello again,
 	          World</element>
 
 However, white space between elements is **not** preserved. Although not strictly
 compliant, tracking and reporting inter-element space is awkward, and not normally
 valuable. TinyXML-2 sees these as the same XML:
 
 	<document>
 		<data>1</data>
 		<data>2</data>
 		<data>3</data>
 	</document>
 
 	<document><data>1</data><data>2</data><data>3</data></document>
 
 #### Whitespace Collapse
 
 For some applications, it is preferable to collapse whitespace. Collapsing
 whitespace gives you "HTML-like" behavior, which is sometimes more suitable
 for hand typed documents.
 
 TinyXML-2 supports this with the 'whitespace' parameter to the XMLDocument constructor.
 (The default is to preserve whitespace, as described above.)
 
 However, you may also use COLLAPSE_WHITESPACE, which will:
 
 * Remove leading and trailing whitespace
 * Convert newlines and line-feeds into a space character
 * Collapse a run of any number of space characters into a single space character
 
 Note that (currently) there is a performance impact for using COLLAPSE_WHITESPACE.
 It essentially causes the XML to be parsed twice.
 
 #### Error Reporting
 
 TinyXML-2 reports the line number of any errors in an XML document that
 cannot be parsed correctly. In addition, all nodes (elements, declarations,
 text, comments etc.) and attributes have a line number recorded as they are parsed.
 This allows an application that performs additional validation of the parsed
 XML document (e.g. application-implemented DTD validation) to report
 line number information for error messages.
 
 ### Entities
 
 TinyXML-2 recognizes the pre-defined "character entities", meaning special
 characters. Namely:
 
 	&amp;	&
 	&lt;	<
 	&gt;	>
 	&quot;	"
 	&apos;	'
 
 These are recognized when the XML document is read, and translated to their
 UTF-8 equivalents. For instance, text with the XML of:
 
 	Far &amp; Away
 
 will have the Value() of "Far & Away" when queried from the XMLText object,
 and will be written back to the XML stream/file as an ampersand.
 
 Additionally, any character can be specified by its Unicode code point:
 The syntax `&#xA0;` or `&#160;` are both to the non-breaking space character.
 This is called a 'numeric character reference'. Any numeric character reference
 that isn't one of the special entities above, will be read, but written as a
 regular code point. The output is correct, but the entity syntax isn't preserved.
 
 ### Printing
 
 #### Print to file
 You can directly use the convenience function:
 
 	XMLDocument doc;
 	...
 	doc.SaveFile( "foo.xml" );
 
 Or the XMLPrinter class:
 
 	XMLPrinter printer( fp );
 	doc.Print( &printer );
 
 #### Print to memory
 Printing to memory is supported by the XMLPrinter.
 
 	XMLPrinter printer;
 	doc.Print( &printer );
 	// printer.CStr() has a const char* to the XML
 
 #### Print without an XMLDocument
 
 When loading, an XML parser is very useful. However, sometimes
 when saving, it just gets in the way. The code is often set up
 for streaming, and constructing the DOM is just overhead.
 
 The Printer supports the streaming case. The following code
 prints out a trivially simple XML file without ever creating
 an XML document.
 
 	XMLPrinter printer( fp );
 	printer.OpenElement( "foo" );
 	printer.PushAttribute( "foo", "bar" );
 	printer.CloseElement();
 
 Examples
 --------
 
 #### Load and parse an XML file.
 
 	/* ------ Example 1: Load and parse an XML file. ---- */
 	{
 		XMLDocument doc;
 		doc.LoadFile( "dream.xml" );
 	}
 
 #### Lookup information.
 
 	/* ------ Example 2: Lookup information. ---- */
 	{
 		XMLDocument doc;
 		doc.LoadFile( "dream.xml" );
 
 		// Structure of the XML file:
 		// - Element "PLAY"      the root Element, which is the
 		//                       FirstChildElement of the Document
 		// - - Element "TITLE"   child of the root PLAY Element
 		// - - - Text            child of the TITLE Element
 
 		// Navigate to the title, using the convenience function,
 		// with a dangerous lack of error checking.
 		const char* title = doc.FirstChildElement( "PLAY" )->FirstChildElement( "TITLE" )->GetText();
 		printf( "Name of play (1): %s\n", title );
 
 		// Text is just another Node to TinyXML-2. The more
 		// general way to get to the XMLText:
 		XMLText* textNode = doc.FirstChildElement( "PLAY" )->FirstChildElement( "TITLE" )->FirstChild()->ToText();
 		title = textNode->Value();
 		printf( "Name of play (2): %s\n", title );
 	}
 
 Using and Installing
 --------------------
 
 There are 2 files in TinyXML-2:
 * tinyxml2.cpp
 * tinyxml2.h
 
 And additionally a test file:
 * xmltest.cpp
 
 Simply compile and run. There is a visual studio 2019 project included, a simple Makefile,
 an Xcode project, a Code::Blocks project, and a cmake CMakeLists.txt included to help you.
 The top of tinyxml.h even has a simple g++ command line if you are using Unix/Linux/BSD and
 don't want to use a build system.
 
 Building TinyXML-2 - Using vcpkg
 --------------------------------
 
 You can download and install TinyXML-2 using the [vcpkg](https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg) dependency manager:
 
     git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
     cd vcpkg
     ./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh
     ./vcpkg integrate install
     ./vcpkg install tinyxml2
 
 The TinyXML-2 port in vcpkg is kept up to date by Microsoft team members and community contributors. If the version is out of date, please [create an issue or pull request](https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg) on the vcpkg repository.
 
 Versioning
 ----------
 
 TinyXML-2 uses semantic versioning. http://semver.org/ Releases are now tagged in github.
 
 Note that the major version will (probably) change fairly rapidly. API changes are fairly
 common.
 
 Documentation
 -------------
 
 The documentation is built with Doxygen, using the 'dox'
 configuration file.
 
 License
 -------
 
 TinyXML-2 is released under the zlib license:
 
 This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied
 warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any
 damages arising from the use of this software.
 
 Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any
 purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and
 redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions:
 
 1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must
 not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this
 software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation
 would be appreciated but is not required.
 2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and
 must not be misrepresented as being the original software.
 3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source
 distribution.
 
 Contributors
 ------------
 
 Thanks very much to everyone who sends suggestions, bugs, ideas, and
 encouragement. It all helps, and makes this project fun.
 
 The original TinyXML-1 has many contributors, who all deserve thanks
 in shaping what is a very successful library. Extra thanks to Yves
 Berquin and Andrew Ellerton who were key contributors.
 
 TinyXML-2 grew from that effort. Lee Thomason is the original author
 of TinyXML-2 (and TinyXML-1) but TinyXML-2 has been and is being improved
 by many contributors.
 
 Thanks to John Mackay at http://john.mackay.rosalilastudio.com for the TinyXML-2 logo!