| Daniel Veillard | 1177ca4 | 2003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1 | <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> | 
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| Daniel Veillard | 598bec3 | 2003-07-06 10:02:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame^] | 10 | </style><title>A real example</title></head><body bgcolor="#8b7765" text="#000000" link="#000000" vlink="#000000"><table border="0" width="100%" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" align="center"><tr><td width="180"><a href="http://www.gnome.org/"><img src="gnome2.png" alt="Gnome2 Logo" /></a><a href="http://www.w3.org/Status"><img src="w3c.png" alt="W3C Logo" /></a><a href="http://www.redhat.com/"><img src="redhat.gif" alt="Red Hat Logo" /></a><div align="left"><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/"><img src="Libxml2-Logo-180x168.gif" alt="Made with Libxml2 Logo" /></a></div></td><td><table border="0" width="90%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="center" bgcolor="#000000"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" bgcolor="#fffacd"><tr><td align="center"><h1>The XML C parser and toolkit of Gnome</h1><h2>A real example</h2></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td></tr></table><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%" align="center"><tr><td bgcolor="#8b7765"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="100%"><tr><td valign="top" width="200" bgcolor="#8b7765"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" width="100%" bgcolor="#000000"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3"><tr><td colspan="1" bgcolor="#eecfa1" align="center"><center><b>Developer Menu</b></center></td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="#fffacd"><form action="search.php" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" method="get"><input name="query" type="text" size="20" value="" /><input name="submit" type="submit" value="Search ..." /></form><ul><li><a href="index.html">Home</a></li><li><a href="guidelines.html">XML Guidelines</a></li><li><a href="tutorial/index.html">Tutorial</a></li><li><a href="xmlreader.html">The Reader Interface</a></li><li><a href="XSLT.html">XSLT</a></li><li><a href="python.html">Python and bindings</a></li><li><a href="architecture.html">libxml2 architecture</a></li><li><a href="tree.html">The tree output</a></li><li><a href="interface.html">The SAX interface</a></li><li><a href="xmlmem.html">Memory Management</a></li><li><a href="xmlio.html">I/O Interfaces</a></li><li><a href="library.html">The parser interfaces</a></li><li><a href="entities.html">Entities or no entities</a></li><li><a href="namespaces.html">Namespaces</a></li><li><a href="upgrade.html">Upgrading 1.x code</a></li><li><a href="threads.html">Thread safety</a></li><li><a href="DOM.html">DOM Principles</a></li><li><a href="example.html">A real example</a></li><li><a href="xml.html">flat page</a>, <a href="site.xsl">stylesheet</a></li></ul></td></tr></table><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3"><tr><td colspan="1" bgcolor="#eecfa1" align="center"><center><b>API Indexes</b></center></td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="#fffacd"><ul><li><a href="APIchunk0.html">Alphabetic</a></li><li><a href="APIconstructors.html">Constructors</a></li><li><a href="APIfunctions.html">Functions/Types</a></li><li><a href="APIfiles.html">Modules</a></li><li><a href="APIsymbols.html">Symbols</a></li></ul></td></tr></table><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3"><tr><td colspan="1" bgcolor="#eecfa1" align="center"><center><b>Related links</b></center></td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="#fffacd"><ul><li><a href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/">Mail archive</a></li><li><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/">XSLT libxslt</a></li><li><a href="http://phd.cs.unibo.it/gdome2/">DOM gdome2</a></li><li><a href="http://www.aleksey.com/xmlsec/">XML-DSig xmlsec</a></li><li><a href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/">FTP</a></li><li><a href="http://www.zlatkovic.com/projects/libxml/">Windows binaries</a></li><li><a href="http://garypennington.net/libxml2/">Solaris binaries</a></li><li><a href="http://www.zveno.com/open_source/libxml2xslt.html">MacOsX binaries</a></li><li><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/libxml2-pas/">Pascal bindings</a></li><li><a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=libxml&product=libxml2">Bug Tracker</a></li></ul></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td><td valign="top" bgcolor="#8b7765"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" width="100%"><tr><td><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" width="100%" bgcolor="#000000"><tr><td><table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" width="100%"><tr><td bgcolor="#fffacd"><p>Here is a real size example, where the actual content of the application | 
| Daniel Veillard | c948420 | 2001-10-24 12:35:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 11 | data is not kept in the DOM tree but uses internal structures. It is based on | 
 | 12 | a proposal to keep a database of jobs related to Gnome, with an XML based | 
 | 13 | storage structure. Here is an <a href="gjobs.xml">XML encoded jobs | 
| Daniel Veillard | 1177ca4 | 2003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 14 | base</a>:</p><pre><?xml version="1.0"?> | 
| Daniel Veillard | c948420 | 2001-10-24 12:35:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 15 | <gjob:Helping xmlns:gjob="http://www.gnome.org/some-location"> | 
 | 16 |   <gjob:Jobs> | 
 | 17 |  | 
 | 18 |     <gjob:Job> | 
 | 19 |       <gjob:Project ID="3"/> | 
 | 20 |       <gjob:Application>GBackup</gjob:Application> | 
 | 21 |       <gjob:Category>Development</gjob:Category> | 
 | 22 |  | 
 | 23 |       <gjob:Update> | 
 | 24 |         <gjob:Status>Open</gjob:Status> | 
 | 25 |         <gjob:Modified>Mon, 07 Jun 1999 20:27:45 -0400 MET DST</gjob:Modified> | 
 | 26 |         <gjob:Salary>USD 0.00</gjob:Salary> | 
 | 27 |       </gjob:Update> | 
 | 28 |  | 
 | 29 |       <gjob:Developers> | 
 | 30 |         <gjob:Developer> | 
 | 31 |         </gjob:Developer> | 
 | 32 |       </gjob:Developers> | 
 | 33 |  | 
 | 34 |       <gjob:Contact> | 
 | 35 |         <gjob:Person>Nathan Clemons</gjob:Person> | 
 | 36 |         <gjob:Email>nathan@windsofstorm.net</gjob:Email> | 
 | 37 |         <gjob:Company> | 
 | 38 |         </gjob:Company> | 
 | 39 |         <gjob:Organisation> | 
 | 40 |         </gjob:Organisation> | 
 | 41 |         <gjob:Webpage> | 
 | 42 |         </gjob:Webpage> | 
 | 43 |         <gjob:Snailmail> | 
 | 44 |         </gjob:Snailmail> | 
 | 45 |         <gjob:Phone> | 
 | 46 |         </gjob:Phone> | 
 | 47 |       </gjob:Contact> | 
 | 48 |  | 
 | 49 |       <gjob:Requirements> | 
 | 50 |       The program should be released as free software, under the GPL. | 
 | 51 |       </gjob:Requirements> | 
 | 52 |  | 
 | 53 |       <gjob:Skills> | 
 | 54 |       </gjob:Skills> | 
 | 55 |  | 
 | 56 |       <gjob:Details> | 
 | 57 |       A GNOME based system that will allow a superuser to configure  | 
 | 58 |       compressed and uncompressed files and/or file systems to be backed  | 
 | 59 |       up with a supported media in the system.  This should be able to  | 
 | 60 |       perform via find commands generating a list of files that are passed  | 
 | 61 |       to tar, dd, cpio, cp, gzip, etc., to be directed to the tape machine  | 
 | 62 |       or via operations performed on the filesystem itself. Email  | 
 | 63 |       notification and GUI status display very important. | 
 | 64 |       </gjob:Details> | 
 | 65 |  | 
 | 66 |     </gjob:Job> | 
 | 67 |  | 
 | 68 |   </gjob:Jobs> | 
| Daniel Veillard | 1177ca4 | 2003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 69 | </gjob:Helping></pre><p>While loading the XML file into an internal DOM tree is a matter of | 
| Daniel Veillard | 63d8314 | 2002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 70 | calling only a couple of functions, browsing the tree to gather the data and | 
| Daniel Veillard | 1177ca4 | 2003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 71 | generate the internal structures is harder, and more error prone.</p><p>The suggested principle is to be tolerant with respect to the input | 
| Daniel Veillard | c948420 | 2001-10-24 12:35:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 72 | structure. For example, the ordering of the attributes is not significant, | 
 | 73 | the XML specification is clear about it. It's also usually a good idea not to | 
 | 74 | depend on the order of the children of a given node, unless it really makes | 
| Daniel Veillard | 1177ca4 | 2003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 75 | things harder. Here is some code to parse the information for a person:</p><pre>/* | 
| Daniel Veillard | c948420 | 2001-10-24 12:35:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 76 |  * A person record | 
 | 77 |  */ | 
 | 78 | typedef struct person { | 
 | 79 |     char *name; | 
 | 80 |     char *email; | 
 | 81 |     char *company; | 
 | 82 |     char *organisation; | 
 | 83 |     char *smail; | 
 | 84 |     char *webPage; | 
 | 85 |     char *phone; | 
 | 86 | } person, *personPtr; | 
 | 87 |  | 
 | 88 | /* | 
 | 89 |  * And the code needed to parse it | 
 | 90 |  */ | 
 | 91 | personPtr parsePerson(xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNsPtr ns, xmlNodePtr cur) { | 
 | 92 |     personPtr ret = NULL; | 
 | 93 |  | 
 | 94 | DEBUG("parsePerson\n"); | 
 | 95 |     /* | 
 | 96 |      * allocate the struct | 
 | 97 |      */ | 
 | 98 |     ret = (personPtr) malloc(sizeof(person)); | 
 | 99 |     if (ret == NULL) { | 
 | 100 |         fprintf(stderr,"out of memory\n"); | 
 | 101 |         return(NULL); | 
 | 102 |     } | 
 | 103 |     memset(ret, 0, sizeof(person)); | 
 | 104 |  | 
 | 105 |     /* We don't care what the top level element name is */ | 
 | 106 |     cur = cur->xmlChildrenNode; | 
 | 107 |     while (cur != NULL) { | 
 | 108 |         if ((!strcmp(cur->name, "Person")) && (cur->ns == ns)) | 
 | 109 |             ret->name = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, cur->xmlChildrenNode, 1); | 
 | 110 |         if ((!strcmp(cur->name, "Email")) && (cur->ns == ns)) | 
 | 111 |             ret->email = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, cur->xmlChildrenNode, 1); | 
 | 112 |         cur = cur->next; | 
 | 113 |     } | 
 | 114 |  | 
 | 115 |     return(ret); | 
| Daniel Veillard | 1177ca4 | 2003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 116 | }</pre><p>Here are a couple of things to notice:</p><ul><li>Usually a recursive parsing style is the more convenient one: XML data | 
| Daniel Veillard | 63d8314 | 2002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 117 |     is by nature subject to repetitive constructs and usually exhibits highly | 
 | 118 |     structured patterns.</li> | 
| Daniel Veillard | 0b28e88 | 2002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 119 |   <li>The two arguments of type <em>xmlDocPtr</em> and <em>xmlNsPtr</em>, | 
| Daniel Veillard | c948420 | 2001-10-24 12:35:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 120 |     i.e. the pointer to the global XML document and the namespace reserved to | 
 | 121 |     the application. Document wide information are needed for example to | 
 | 122 |     decode entities and it's a good coding practice to define a namespace for | 
 | 123 |     your application set of data and test that the element and attributes | 
 | 124 |     you're analyzing actually pertains to your application space. This is | 
 | 125 |     done by a simple equality test (cur->ns == ns).</li> | 
| Daniel Veillard | 0b28e88 | 2002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 126 |   <li>To retrieve text and attributes value, you can use the function | 
| Daniel Veillard | c948420 | 2001-10-24 12:35:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 127 |     <em>xmlNodeListGetString</em> to gather all the text and entity reference | 
 | 128 |     nodes generated by the DOM output and produce an single text string.</li> | 
| Daniel Veillard | 1177ca4 | 2003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 129 | </ul><p>Here is another piece of code used to parse another level of the | 
 | 130 | structure:</p><pre>#include <libxml/tree.h> | 
| Daniel Veillard | c948420 | 2001-10-24 12:35:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 131 | /* | 
 | 132 |  * a Description for a Job | 
 | 133 |  */ | 
 | 134 | typedef struct job { | 
 | 135 |     char *projectID; | 
 | 136 |     char *application; | 
 | 137 |     char *category; | 
 | 138 |     personPtr contact; | 
 | 139 |     int nbDevelopers; | 
 | 140 |     personPtr developers[100]; /* using dynamic alloc is left as an exercise */ | 
 | 141 | } job, *jobPtr; | 
 | 142 |  | 
 | 143 | /* | 
 | 144 |  * And the code needed to parse it | 
 | 145 |  */ | 
 | 146 | jobPtr parseJob(xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNsPtr ns, xmlNodePtr cur) { | 
 | 147 |     jobPtr ret = NULL; | 
 | 148 |  | 
 | 149 | DEBUG("parseJob\n"); | 
 | 150 |     /* | 
 | 151 |      * allocate the struct | 
 | 152 |      */ | 
 | 153 |     ret = (jobPtr) malloc(sizeof(job)); | 
 | 154 |     if (ret == NULL) { | 
 | 155 |         fprintf(stderr,"out of memory\n"); | 
 | 156 |         return(NULL); | 
 | 157 |     } | 
 | 158 |     memset(ret, 0, sizeof(job)); | 
 | 159 |  | 
 | 160 |     /* We don't care what the top level element name is */ | 
 | 161 |     cur = cur->xmlChildrenNode; | 
 | 162 |     while (cur != NULL) { | 
 | 163 |          | 
 | 164 |         if ((!strcmp(cur->name, "Project")) && (cur->ns == ns)) { | 
 | 165 |             ret->projectID = xmlGetProp(cur, "ID"); | 
 | 166 |             if (ret->projectID == NULL) { | 
 | 167 |                 fprintf(stderr, "Project has no ID\n"); | 
 | 168 |             } | 
 | 169 |         } | 
 | 170 |         if ((!strcmp(cur->name, "Application")) && (cur->ns == ns)) | 
 | 171 |             ret->application = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, cur->xmlChildrenNode, 1); | 
 | 172 |         if ((!strcmp(cur->name, "Category")) && (cur->ns == ns)) | 
 | 173 |             ret->category = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, cur->xmlChildrenNode, 1); | 
 | 174 |         if ((!strcmp(cur->name, "Contact")) && (cur->ns == ns)) | 
 | 175 |             ret->contact = parsePerson(doc, ns, cur); | 
 | 176 |         cur = cur->next; | 
 | 177 |     } | 
 | 178 |  | 
 | 179 |     return(ret); | 
| Daniel Veillard | 1177ca4 | 2003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 180 | }</pre><p>Once you are used to it, writing this kind of code is quite simple, but | 
| Daniel Veillard | 63d8314 | 2002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 181 | boring. Ultimately, it could be possible to write stubbers taking either C | 
| Daniel Veillard | c948420 | 2001-10-24 12:35:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 182 | data structure definitions, a set of XML examples or an XML DTD and produce | 
 | 183 | the code needed to import and export the content between C data and XML | 
| Daniel Veillard | 1177ca4 | 2003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 184 | storage. This is left as an exercise to the reader :-)</p><p>Feel free to use <a href="example/gjobread.c">the code for the full C | 
| Daniel Veillard | c948420 | 2001-10-24 12:35:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 185 | parsing example</a> as a template, it is also available with Makefile in the | 
| Daniel Veillard | 1177ca4 | 2003-04-26 22:29:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 186 | Gnome CVS base under gnome-xml/example</p><p><a href="bugs.html">Daniel Veillard</a></p></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></body></html> |