XML::Simple - Easy API to maintain XML (esp config files)
use XML::Simple;
my $ref = XMLin([<xml file or string>] [, <options>]);
my $xml = XMLout($hashref [, <options>]);
Or the object oriented way:
require XML::Simple;
my $xs = XML::Simple->new(options);
my $ref = $xs->XMLin([<xml file or string>] [, <options>]);
my $xml = $xs->XMLout($hashref [, <options>]);
(or see "SAX SUPPORT" for 'the SAX way').
To catch common errors:
use XML::Simple qw(:strict);
(see "STRICT MODE" for more details).
Say you have a script called foo and a file of configuration options called foo.xml containing this:
<config logdir="/var/log/foo/" debugfile="/tmp/foo.debug">
<server name="sahara" osname="solaris" osversion="2.6">
<address>10.0.0.101</address>
<address>10.0.1.101</address>
</server>
<server name="gobi" osname="irix" osversion="6.5">
<address>10.0.0.102</address>
</server>
<server name="kalahari" osname="linux" osversion="2.0.34">
<address>10.0.0.103</address>
<address>10.0.1.103</address>
</server>
</config>
The following lines of code in foo:
use XML::Simple; my $config = XMLin();
will 'slurp' the configuration options into the hashref $config (because no
arguments are passed to XMLin() the name and location of the XML file will
be inferred from name and location of the script). You can dump out the
contents of the hashref using Data::Dumper:
use Data::Dumper; print Dumper($config);
which will produce something like this (formatting has been adjusted for brevity):
{
'logdir' => '/var/log/foo/',
'debugfile' => '/tmp/foo.debug',
'server' => {
'sahara' => {
'osversion' => '2.6',
'osname' => 'solaris',
'address' => [ '10.0.0.101', '10.0.1.101' ]
},
'gobi' => {
'osversion' => '6.5',
'osname' => 'irix',
'address' => '10.0.0.102'
},
'kalahari' => {
'osversion' => '2.0.34',
'osname' => 'linux',
'address' => [ '10.0.0.103', '10.0.1.103' ]
}
}
}
Your script could then access the name of the log directory like this:
print $config->{logdir};
similarly, the second address on the server 'kalahari' could be referenced as:
print $config->{server}->{kalahari}->{address}->[1];
What could be simpler? (Rhetorical).
For simple requirements, that's really all there is to it. If you want to store your XML in a different directory or file, or pass it in as a string or even pass it in via some derivative of an IO::Handle, you'll need to check out "OPTIONS". If you want to turn off or tweak the array folding feature (that neat little transformation that produced $config->{server}) you'll find options for that as well.
If you want to generate XML (for example to write a modified version of
$config back out as XML), check out XMLout().
If your needs are not so simple, this may not be the module for you. In that case, you might want to read "WHERE TO FROM HERE?".
The XML::Simple module provides a simple API layer on top of an underlying XML
parsing module (either XML::Parser or one of the SAX2 parser modules). Two
functions are exported: XMLin() and XMLout(). Note: you can explicity
request the lower case versions of the function names: xml_in() and
xml_out().
The simplest approach is to call these two functions directly, but an optional object oriented interface (see "OPTIONAL OO INTERFACE" below) allows them to be called as methods of an XML::Simple object. The object interface can also be used at either end of a SAX pipeline.
Parses XML formatted data and returns a reference to a data structure which contains the same information in a more readily accessible form. (Skip down to "EXAMPLES" below, for more sample code).
XMLin() accepts an optional XML specifier followed by zero or more 'name =>
value' option pairs. The XML specifier can be one of the following:
If the filename contains no directory components XMLin() will look for the
file in each directory in the SearchPath (see "OPTIONS" below) or in the
current directory if the SearchPath option is not defined. eg:
$ref = XMLin('/etc/params.xml');
Note, the filename '-' can be used to parse from STDIN.
If there is no XML specifier, XMLin() will check the script directory and
each of the SearchPath directories for a file with the same name as the script
but with the extension '.xml'. Note: if you wish to specify options, you
must specify the value 'undef'. eg:
$ref = XMLin(undef, ForceArray => 1);
A string containing XML (recognised by the presence of '<' and '>' characters) will be parsed directly. eg:
$ref = XMLin('<opt username="bob" password="flurp" />');
An IO::Handle object will be read to EOF and its contents parsed. eg:
$fh = IO::File->new('/etc/params.xml');
$ref = XMLin($fh);
Takes a data structure (generally a hashref) and returns an XML encoding of
that structure. If the resulting XML is parsed using XMLin(), it should
return a data structure equivalent to the original (see caveats below).
The XMLout() function can also be used to output the XML as SAX events
see the Handler option and "SAX SUPPORT" for more details).
When translating hashes to XML, hash keys which have a leading '-' will be
silently skipped. This is the approved method for marking elements of a
data structure which should be ignored by XMLout. (Note: If these items
were not skipped the key names would be emitted as element or attribute names
with a leading '-' which would not be valid XML).
Some care is required in creating data structures which will be passed to
XMLout(). Hash keys from the data structure will be encoded as either XML
element names or attribute names. Therefore, you should use hash key names
which conform to the relatively strict XML naming rules:
Names in XML must begin with a letter. The remaining characters may be letters, digits, hyphens (-), underscores (_) or full stops (.). It is also allowable to include one colon (:) in an element name but this should only be used when working with namespaces (XML::Simple can only usefully work with namespaces when teamed with a SAX Parser).
You can use other punctuation characters in hash values (just not in hash keys) however XML::Simple does not support dumping binary data.
If you break these rules, the current implementation of XMLout() will
simply emit non-compliant XML which will be rejected if you try to read it
back in. (A later version of XML::Simple might take a more proactive
approach).
Note also that although you can nest hashes and arrays to arbitrary levels,
circular data structures are not supported and will cause XMLout() to die.
If you wish to 'round-trip' arbitrary data structures from Perl to XML and back
to Perl, then you should probably disable array folding (using the KeyAttr
option) both with XMLout() and with XMLin(). If you still don't get the
expected results, you may prefer to use XML::Dumper which is designed for
exactly that purpose.
Refer to "WHERE TO FROM HERE?" if XMLout() is too simple for your needs.
XML::Simple supports a number of options (in fact as each release of XML::Simple adds more options, the module's claim to the name 'Simple' becomes increasingly tenuous). If you find yourself repeatedly having to specify the same options, you might like to investigate "OPTIONAL OO INTERFACE" below.
If you can't be bothered reading the documentation, refer to "STRICT MODE" to automatically catch common mistakes.
Because there are so many options, it's hard for new users to know which ones are important, so here are the two you really need to know about:
ForceArray because you'll almost certainly want to turn it on
KeyAttr option does and what its default value is
because it may surprise you otherwise (note in particular that 'KeyAttr'
affects both XMLin and XMLout)
The option name headings below have a trailing 'comment' - a hash followed by two pieces of metadata:
XMLin() and
'out' if they are recognised by XMLout().
Each option is also flagged to indicate whether it is:
'important' - don't use the module until you understand this one
'handy' - you can skip this on the first time through
'advanced' - you can skip this on the second time through
'SAX only' - don't worry about this unless you're using SAX (or
alternatively if you need this, you also need SAX)
'seldom used' - you'll probably never use this unless you were the
person that requested the feature
The options are listed alphabetically:
Note: option names are no longer case sensitive so you can use the mixed case versions shown here; all lower case as required by versions 2.03 and earlier; or you can add underscores between the words (eg: key_attr).
When you are using XMLout(), enable this option to have attributes printed
one-per-line with sensible indentation rather than all on one line.
Because loading the XML::Parser module and parsing an XML file can consume a
significant number of CPU cycles, it is often desirable to cache the output of
XMLin() for later reuse.
When parsing from a named file, XML::Simple supports a number of caching schemes. The 'Cache' option may be used to specify one or more schemes (using an anonymous array). Each scheme will be tried in turn in the hope of finding a cached pre-parsed representation of the XML file. If no cached copy is found, the file will be parsed and the first cache scheme in the list will be used to save a copy of the results. The following cache schemes have been implemented:
When a file is first parsed, a copy of the resulting data structure is retained in memory in the XML::Simple module's namespace. Subsequent calls to parse the same file will return a reference to this structure. This cached version will persist only for the life of the Perl interpreter (which in the case of mod_perl for example, may be some significant time).
Because each caller receives a reference to the same data structure, a change made by one caller will be visible to all. For this reason, the reference returned should be treated as read-only.
Warning! The memory-based caching schemes compare the timestamp on the file to the time when it was last parsed. If the file is stored on an NFS filesystem (or other network share) and the clock on the file server is not exactly synchronised with the clock where your script is run, updates to the source XML file may appear to be ignored.
When text content is parsed to a hash value, this option let's you specify a name for the hash key to override the default 'content'. So for example:
XMLin('<opt one="1">Text</opt>', ContentKey => 'text')
will parse to:
{ 'one' => 1, 'text' => 'Text' }
instead of:
{ 'one' => 1, 'content' => 'Text' }
XMLout() will also honour the value of this option when converting a hashref
to XML.
You can also prefix your selected key name with a '-' character to have
XMLin() try a little harder to eliminate unnecessary 'content' keys after
array folding. For example:
XMLin(
'<opt><item name="one">First</item><item name="two">Second</item></opt>',
KeyAttr => {item => 'name'},
ForceArray => [ 'item' ],
ContentKey => '-content'
)
will parse to:
{
'item' => {
'one' => 'First'
'two' => 'Second'
}
}
rather than this (without the '-'):
{
'item' => {
'one' => { 'content' => 'First' }
'two' => { 'content' => 'Second' }
}
}
When you use an XML::Simple object as a SAX handler, it will return a
'simple tree' data structure in the same format as XMLin() would return. If
this option is set (to a subroutine reference), then when the tree is built the
subroutine will be called and passed two arguments: a reference to the
XML::Simple object and a reference to the data tree. The return value from
the subroutine will be returned to the SAX driver. (See "SAX SUPPORT" for
more details).
This option should be set to '1' to force nested elements to be represented as arrays even when there is only one. Eg, with ForceArray enabled, this XML:
<opt>
<name>value</name>
</opt>
would parse to this:
{
'name' => [
'value'
]
}
instead of this (the default):
{
'name' => 'value'
}
This option is especially useful if the data structure is likely to be written back out as XML and the default behaviour of rolling single nested elements up into attributes is not desirable.
If you are using the array folding feature, you should almost certainly enable this option. If you do not, single nested elements will not be parsed to arrays and therefore will not be candidates for folding to a hash. (Given that the default value of 'KeyAttr' enables array folding, the default value of this option should probably also have been enabled too - sorry).
This alternative (and preferred) form of the 'ForceArray' option allows you to specify a list of element names which should always be forced into an array representation, rather than the 'all or nothing' approach above.
It is also possible (since version 2.05) to include compiled regular expressions in the list - any element names which match the pattern will be forced to arrays. If the list contains only a single regex, then it is not necessary to enclose it in an arrayref. Eg:
ForceArray => qr/_list$/
When XMLin() parses elements which have text content as well as attributes,
the text content must be represented as a hash value rather than a simple
scalar. This option allows you to force text content to always parse to
a hash value even when there are no attributes. So for example:
XMLin('<opt><x>text1</x><y a="2">text2</y></opt>', ForceContent => 1)
will parse to:
{
'x' => { 'content' => 'text1' },
'y' => { 'a' => 2, 'content' => 'text2' }
}
instead of:
{
'x' => 'text1',
'y' => { 'a' => 2, 'content' => 'text2' }
}
You can use this option to eliminate extra levels of indirection in your Perl data structure. For example this XML:
<opt>
<searchpath>
<dir>/usr/bin</dir>
<dir>/usr/local/bin</dir>
<dir>/usr/X11/bin</dir>
</searchpath>
</opt>
Would normally be read into a structure like this:
{
searchpath => {
dir => [ '/usr/bin', '/usr/local/bin', '/usr/X11/bin' ]
}
}
But when read in with the appropriate value for 'GroupTags':
my $opt = XMLin($xml, GroupTags => { searchpath => 'dir' });
It will return this simpler structure:
{
searchpath => [ '/usr/bin', '/usr/local/bin', '/usr/X11/bin' ]
}
The grouping element (<searchpath> in the example) must not contain any
attributes or elements other than the grouped element.
You can specify multiple 'grouping element' to 'grouped element' mappings in
the same hashref. If this option is combined with KeyAttr, the array
folding will occur first and then the grouped element names will be eliminated.
XMLout will also use the grouptag mappings to re-introduce the tags around
the grouped elements. Beware though that this will occur in all places that
the 'grouping tag' name occurs - you probably don't want to use the same name
for elements as well as attributes.
Use the 'Handler' option to have XMLout() generate SAX events rather than
returning a string of XML. For more details see "SAX SUPPORT" below.
Note: the current implementation of this option generates a string of XML and uses a SAX parser to translate it into SAX events. The normal encoding rules apply here - your data must be UTF8 encoded unless you specify an alternative encoding via the 'XMLDecl' option; and by the time the data reaches the handler object, it will be in UTF8 form regardless of the encoding you supply. A future implementation of this option may generate the events directly.
In its attempt to return a data structure free of superfluous detail and
unnecessary levels of indirection, XMLin() normally discards the root
element name. Setting the 'KeepRoot' option to '1' will cause the root element
name to be retained. So after executing this code:
$config = XMLin('<config tempdir="/tmp" />', KeepRoot => 1)
You'll be able to reference the tempdir as
$config->{config}->{tempdir} instead of the default
$config->{tempdir}.
Similarly, setting the 'KeepRoot' option to '1' will tell XMLout() that the
data structure already contains a root element name and it is not necessary to
add another.
This option controls the 'array folding' feature which translates nested elements from an array to a hash. It also controls the 'unfolding' of hashes to arrays.
For example, this XML:
<opt>
<user login="grep" fullname="Gary R Epstein" />
<user login="stty" fullname="Simon T Tyson" />
</opt>
would, by default, parse to this:
{
'user' => [
{
'login' => 'grep',
'fullname' => 'Gary R Epstein'
},
{
'login' => 'stty',
'fullname' => 'Simon T Tyson'
}
]
}
If the option 'KeyAttr => "login"' were used to specify that the 'login' attribute is a key, the same XML would parse to:
{
'user' => {
'stty' => {
'fullname' => 'Simon T Tyson'
},
'grep' => {
'fullname' => 'Gary R Epstein'
}
}
}
The key attribute names should be supplied in an arrayref if there is more
than one. XMLin() will attempt to match attribute names in the order
supplied. XMLout() will use the first attribute name supplied when
'unfolding' a hash into an array.
Note 1: The default value for 'KeyAttr' is ['name', 'key', 'id']. If you do not want folding on input or unfolding on output you must setting this option to an empty list to disable the feature.
Note 2: If you wish to use this option, you should also enable the
ForceArray option. Without 'ForceArray', a single nested element will be
rolled up into a scalar rather than an array and therefore will not be folded
(since only arrays get folded).
This alternative (and preferred) method of specifiying the key attributes allows more fine grained control over which elements are folded and on which attributes. For example the option 'KeyAttr => { package => 'id' } will cause any package elements to be folded on the 'id' attribute. No other elements which have an 'id' attribute will be folded at all.
Note: XMLin() will generate a warning (or a fatal error in "STRICT MODE")
if this syntax is used and an element which does not have the specified key
attribute is encountered (eg: a 'package' element without an 'id' attribute, to
use the example above). Warnings will only be generated if -w is in force.
Two further variations are made possible by prefixing a '+' or a '-' character to the attribute name:
The option 'KeyAttr => { user => "+login" }' will cause this XML:
<opt>
<user login="grep" fullname="Gary R Epstein" />
<user login="stty" fullname="Simon T Tyson" />
</opt>
to parse to this data structure:
{
'user' => {
'stty' => {
'fullname' => 'Simon T Tyson',
'login' => 'stty'
},
'grep' => {
'fullname' => 'Gary R Epstein',
'login' => 'grep'
}
}
}
The '+' indicates that the value of the key attribute should be copied rather than moved to the folded hash key.
A '-' prefix would produce this result:
{
'user' => {
'stty' => {
'fullname' => 'Simon T Tyson',
'-login' => 'stty'
},
'grep' => {
'fullname' => 'Gary R Epstein',
'-login' => 'grep'
}
}
}
As described earlier, XMLout will ignore hash keys starting with a '-'.
When used with XMLout(), the generated XML will contain no attributes.
All hash key/values will be represented as nested elements instead.
When used with XMLin(), any attributes in the XML will be ignored.
By default, XMLout() will translate the characters '<', '>', '&' and
'"' to '<', '>', '&' and '"' respectively. Use this option to
suppress escaping (presumably because you've already escaped the data in some
more sophisticated manner).
Set this option to 1 to disable XMLout()'s default 'pretty printing' mode.
With this option enabled, the XML output will all be on one line (unless there
are newlines in the data) - this may be easier for downstream processing.
Newer versions of XML::Simple sort elements and attributes alphabetically (*), by default. Enable this option to suppress the sorting - possibly for backwards compatibility.
* Actually, sorting is alphabetical but 'key' attribute or element names (as in 'KeyAttr') sort first. Also, when a hash of hashes is 'unfolded', the elements are sorted alphabetically by the value of the key field.
This option controls how whitespace in text content is handled. Recognised values for the option are:
Note: you can spell this option with a 'z' if that is more natural for you.
This option controls namespace expansion - the translation of element and attribute names of the form 'prefix:name' to '{uri}name'. For example the element name 'xsl:template' might be expanded to: '{http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform}template'.
By default, XMLin() will return element names and attribute names exactly as
they appear in the XML. Setting this option to 1 will cause all element and
attribute names to be expanded to include their namespace prefix.
Note: You must be using a SAX parser for this option to work (ie: it does not work with XML::Parser).
This option also controls whether XMLout() performs the reverse translation
from '{uri}name' back to 'prefix:name'. The default is no translation. If
your data contains expanded names, you should set this option to 1 otherwise
XMLout will emit XML which is not well formed.
Note: You must have the XML::NamespaceSupport module installed if you want
XMLout() to translate URIs back to prefixes.
Use this option to have 'high' (non-ASCII) characters in your Perl data structure converted to numeric entities (eg: €) in the XML output. Three levels are possible:
0 - default: no numeric escaping (OK if you're writing out UTF8)
1 - only characters above 0xFF are escaped (ie: characters in the 0x80-FF range are not escaped), possibly useful with ISO8859-1 output
2 - all characters above 0x7F are escaped (good for plain ASCII output)
The default behaviour of XMLout() is to return the XML as a string. If you
wish to write the XML to a file, simply supply the filename using the
'OutputFile' option.
This option also accepts an IO handle object - especially useful in Perl 5.8.0 and later for output using an encoding other than UTF-8, eg:
open my $fh, '>:encoding(iso-8859-1)', $path or die "open($path): $!"; XMLout($ref, OutputFile => $fh);
Note, XML::Simple does not require that the object you pass in to the
OutputFile option inherits from IO::Handle - it simply assumes the object
supports a print method.
Note: This option is now officially deprecated. If you find it useful, email the author with an example of what you use it for. Do not use this option to set the ProtocolEncoding, that's just plain wrong - fix the XML.
This option allows you to pass parameters to the constructor of the underlying XML::Parser object (which of course assumes you're not using SAX).
By default, when XMLout() generates XML, the root element will be named
'opt'. This option allows you to specify an alternative name.
Specifying either undef or the empty string for the RootName option will
produce XML with no root elements. In most cases the resulting XML fragment
will not be 'well formed' and therefore could not be read back in by XMLin().
Nevertheless, the option has been found to be useful in certain circumstances.
If you pass XMLin() a filename, but the filename include no directory
component, you can use this option to specify which directories should be
searched to locate the file. You might use this option to search first in the
user's home directory, then in a global directory such as /etc.
If a filename is provided to XMLin() but SearchPath is not defined, the
file is assumed to be in the current directory.
If the first parameter to XMLin() is undefined, the default SearchPath
will contain only the directory in which the script itself is located.
Otherwise the default SearchPath will be empty.
This option controls what XMLin() should do with empty elements (no
attributes and no content). The default behaviour is to represent them as
empty hashes. Setting this option to a true value (eg: 1) will cause empty
elements to be skipped altogether. Setting the option to 'undef' or the empty
string will cause empty elements to be represented as the undefined value or
the empty string respectively. The latter two alternatives are a little
easier to test for in your code than a hash with no keys.
The option also controls what XMLout() does with undefined values. Setting
the option to undef causes undefined values to be output as empty elements
(rather than empty attributes), it also suppresses the generation of warnings
about undefined values. Setting the option to a true value (eg: 1) causes
undefined values to be skipped altogether on output.
Use this option to deal elements which always have a single attribute and no content. Eg:
<opt>
<colour value="red" />
<size value="XXL" />
</opt>
Setting ValueAttr => [ 'value' ] will cause the above XML to parse to:
{
colour => 'red',
size => 'XXL'
}
instead of this (the default):
{
colour => { value => 'red' },
size => { value => 'XXL' }
}
Note: This form of the ValueAttr option is not compatible with XMLout() -
since the attribute name is discarded at parse time, the original XML cannot be
reconstructed.
This (preferred) form of the ValueAttr option requires you to specify both
the element and the attribute names. This is not only safer, it also allows
the original XML to be reconstructed by XMLout().
Note: You probably don't want to use this option and the NoAttr option at the same time.
This option allows variables in the XML to be expanded when the file is read.
(there is no facility for putting the variable names back if you regenerate
XML using XMLout).
A 'variable' is any text of the form ${name} which occurs in an attribute
value or in the text content of an element. If 'name' matches a key in the
supplied hashref, ${name} will be replaced with the corresponding value from
the hashref. If no matching key is found, the variable will not be replaced.
Names must match the regex: [\w.]+ (ie: only 'word' characters and dots are
allowed).
In addition to the variables defined using Variables, this option allows
variables to be defined in the XML. A variable definition consists of an
element with an attribute called 'attr_name' (the value of the VarAttr
option). The value of the attribute will be used as the variable name and the
text content of the element will be used as the value. A variable defined in
this way will override a variable defined using the Variables option. For
example:
XMLin( '<opt>
<dir name="prefix">/usr/local/apache</dir>
<dir name="exec_prefix">${prefix}</dir>
<dir name="bindir">${exec_prefix}/bin</dir>
</opt>',
VarAttr => 'name', ContentKey => '-content'
);
produces the following data structure:
{
dir => {
prefix => '/usr/local/apache',
exec_prefix => '/usr/local/apache',
bindir => '/usr/local/apache/bin',
}
}
If you want the output from XMLout() to start with the optional XML
declaration, simply set the option to '1'. The default XML declaration is:
<?xml version='1.0' standalone='yes'?>
If you want some other string (for example to declare an encoding value), set the value of this option to the complete string you require.
The procedural interface is both simple and convenient however there are a couple of reasons why you might prefer to use the object oriented (OO) interface:
XMLin() or XMLout()
The default values for the options described above are unlikely to suit everyone. The OO interface allows you to effectively override XML::Simple's defaults with your preferred values. It works like this:
First create an XML::Simple parser object with your preferred defaults:
my $xs = XML::Simple->new(ForceArray => 1, KeepRoot => 1);
then call XMLin() or XMLout() as a method of that object:
my $ref = $xs->XMLin($xml); my $xml = $xs->XMLout($ref);
You can also specify options when you make the method calls and these values will be merged with the values specified when the object was created. Values specified in a method call take precedence.
Note: when called as methods, the XMLin() and XMLout() routines may be
called as xml_in() or xml_out(). The method names are aliased so the
only difference is the aesthetics.
You can explicitly call one of the following methods rather than rely on the
xml_in() method automatically determining whether the target to be parsed is
a string, a file or a filehandle:
xml_in() method but assumes the first argument is
a string of XML (or a reference to a scalar containing a string of XML).
xml_in() method but assumes the first argument is
the name of a file containing XML.
xml_in() method but assumes the first argument is
a filehandle which can be read to get XML.
You can make your own class which inherits from XML::Simple and overrides certain behaviours. The following methods may provide useful 'hooks' upon which to hang your modified behaviour. You may find other undocumented methods by examining the source, but those may be subject to change in future releases.
XMLout()
method is called. The initial argument will be a string (either 'in' or 'out')
and the remaining arguments will be name value pairs.
XMLin() (default: $0.xml).
XMLin() or any of the parsing methods. Takes either a file name
as the first argument or undef followed by a 'string' as the second
argument. Returns a simple tree data structure. You could override this
method to apply your own transformations before the data structure is returned
to the caller.
XMLout() is translating a hashref to XML. This routine returns
a list of hash keys in the order that the corresponding attributes/elements
should appear in the output.
XMLout(), takes a string and returns a copy of the string with
XML character escaping rules applied.
escape_value(), to handle non-ASCII characters (depending on the
value of the NumericEscape option).
XMLout(), when 'unfolding' a hash of hashes into an array of
hashes. You might wish to override this method if you're using tied hashes and
don't want them to get untied.
XML::Simple implements three caching schemes ('storable', 'memshare' and 'memcopy'). You can implement a custom caching scheme by implementing two methods - one for reading from the cache and one for writing to it.
For example, you might implement a new 'dbm' scheme that stores cached data
structures using the MLDBM module. First, you would add a
cache_read_dbm() method which accepted a filename for use as a lookup key
and returned a data structure on success, or undef on failure. Then, you would
implement a cache_read_dbm() method which accepted a data structure and a
filename.
You would use this caching scheme by specifying the option:
Cache => [ 'dbm' ]
If you import the XML::Simple routines like this:
use XML::Simple qw(:strict);
the following common mistakes will be detected and treated as fatal errors
KeyAttr option - if you can't be bothered
reading about this option, turn it off with: KeyAttr => [ ]
ForceArray option - if you can't be bothered
reading about this option, set it to the safest mode with: ForceArray => 1
From version 1.08_01, XML::Simple includes support for SAX (the Simple API for XML) - specifically SAX2.
In a typical SAX application, an XML parser (or SAX 'driver') module generates SAX events (start of element, character data, end of element, etc) as it parses an XML document and a 'handler' module processes the events to extract the required data. This simple model allows for some interesting and powerful possibilities:
XML::Simple can operate at either end of a SAX pipeline. For example,
you can take a data structure in the form of a hashref and pass it into a
SAX pipeline using the 'Handler' option on XMLout():
use XML::Simple;
use Some::SAX::Filter;
use XML::SAX::Writer;
my $ref = {
.... # your data here
};
my $writer = XML::SAX::Writer->new();
my $filter = Some::SAX::Filter->new(Handler => $writer);
my $simple = XML::Simple->new(Handler => $filter);
$simple->XMLout($ref);
You can also put XML::Simple at the opposite end of the pipeline to take advantage of the simple 'tree' data structure once the relevant data has been isolated through filtering:
use XML::SAX;
use Some::SAX::Filter;
use XML::Simple;
my $simple = XML::Simple->new(ForceArray => 1, KeyAttr => ['partnum']);
my $filter = Some::SAX::Filter->new(Handler => $simple);
my $parser = XML::SAX::ParserFactory->parser(Handler => $filter);
my $ref = $parser->parse_uri('some_huge_file.xml');
print $ref->{part}->{'555-1234'};
You can build a filter by using an XML::Simple object as a handler and setting its DataHandler option to point to a routine which takes the resulting tree, modifies it and sends it off as SAX events to a downstream handler:
my $writer = XML::SAX::Writer->new();
my $filter = XML::Simple->new(
DataHandler => sub {
my $simple = shift;
my $data = shift;
# Modify $data here
$simple->XMLout($data, Handler => $writer);
}
);
my $parser = XML::SAX::ParserFactory->parser(Handler => $filter);
$parser->parse_uri($filename);
Note: In this last example, the 'Handler' option was specified in the call to
XMLout() but it could also have been specified in the constructor.
If you don't care which parser module XML::Simple uses then skip this section entirely (it looks more complicated than it really is).
XML::Simple will default to using a SAX parser if one is available or XML::Parser if SAX is not available.
You can dictate which parser module is used by setting either the environment variable 'XML_SIMPLE_PREFERRED_PARSER' or the package variable $XML::Simple::PREFERRED_PARSER to contain the module name. The following rules are used:
XMLin() will die if XML::Parser is not
installed).
XMLin() will die.
XMLin() will die if
XML::Parser is not installed.
Note: The XML::SAX distribution includes an XML parser written entirely in Perl. It is very portable but it is not very fast. You should consider installing XML::LibXML or XML::SAX::Expat if they are available for your platform.
The XML standard is very clear on the issue of non-compliant documents. An error in parsing any single element (for example a missing end tag) must cause the whole document to be rejected. XML::Simple will die with an appropriate message if it encounters a parsing error.
If dying is not appropriate for your application, you should arrange to call
XMLin() in an eval block and look for errors in $@. eg:
my $config = eval { XMLin() };
PopUpMessage($@) if($@);
Note, there is a common misconception that use of eval will significantly slow down a script. While that may be true when the code being eval'd is in a string, it is not true of code like the sample above.
When XMLin() reads the following very simple piece of XML:
<opt username="testuser" password="frodo"></opt>
it returns the following data structure:
{
'username' => 'testuser',
'password' => 'frodo'
}
The identical result could have been produced with this alternative XML:
<opt username="testuser" password="frodo" />
Or this (although see 'ForceArray' option for variations):
<opt>
<username>testuser</username>
<password>frodo</password>
</opt>
Repeated nested elements are represented as anonymous arrays:
<opt>
<person firstname="Joe" lastname="Smith">
<email>joe@smith.com</email>
<email>jsmith@yahoo.com</email>
</person>
<person firstname="Bob" lastname="Smith">
<email>bob@smith.com</email>
</person>
</opt>
{
'person' => [
{
'email' => [
'joe@smith.com',
'jsmith@yahoo.com'
],
'firstname' => 'Joe',
'lastname' => 'Smith'
},
{
'email' => 'bob@smith.com',
'firstname' => 'Bob',
'lastname' => 'Smith'
}
]
}
Nested elements with a recognised key attribute are transformed (folded) from
an array into a hash keyed on the value of that attribute (see the KeyAttr
option):
<opt>
<person key="jsmith" firstname="Joe" lastname="Smith" />
<person key="tsmith" firstname="Tom" lastname="Smith" />
<person key="jbloggs" firstname="Joe" lastname="Bloggs" />
</opt>
{
'person' => {
'jbloggs' => {
'firstname' => 'Joe',
'lastname' => 'Bloggs'
},
'tsmith' => {
'firstname' => 'Tom',
'lastname' => 'Smith'
},
'jsmith' => {
'firstname' => 'Joe',
'lastname' => 'Smith'
}
}
}
The <anon> tag can be used to form anonymous arrays:
<opt>
<head><anon>Col 1</anon><anon>Col 2</anon><anon>Col 3</anon></head>
<data><anon>R1C1</anon><anon>R1C2</anon><anon>R1C3</anon></data>
<data><anon>R2C1</anon><anon>R2C2</anon><anon>R2C3</anon></data>
<data><anon>R3C1</anon><anon>R3C2</anon><anon>R3C3</anon></data>
</opt>
{
'head' => [
[ 'Col 1', 'Col 2', 'Col 3' ]
],
'data' => [
[ 'R1C1', 'R1C2', 'R1C3' ],
[ 'R2C1', 'R2C2', 'R2C3' ],
[ 'R3C1', 'R3C2', 'R3C3' ]
]
}
Anonymous arrays can be nested to arbirtrary levels and as a special case, if the surrounding tags for an XML document contain only an anonymous array the arrayref will be returned directly rather than the usual hashref:
<opt>
<anon><anon>Col 1</anon><anon>Col 2</anon></anon>
<anon><anon>R1C1</anon><anon>R1C2</anon></anon>
<anon><anon>R2C1</anon><anon>R2C2</anon></anon>
</opt>
[
[ 'Col 1', 'Col 2' ],
[ 'R1C1', 'R1C2' ],
[ 'R2C1', 'R2C2' ]
]
Elements which only contain text content will simply be represented as a
scalar. Where an element has both attributes and text content, the element
will be represented as a hashref with the text content in the 'content' key
(see the ContentKey option):
<opt>
<one>first</one>
<two attr="value">second</two>
</opt>
{
'one' => 'first',
'two' => { 'attr' => 'value', 'content' => 'second' }
}
Mixed content (elements which contain both text content and nested elements) will be not be represented in a useful way - element order and significant whitespace will be lost. If you need to work with mixed content, then XML::Simple is not the right tool for your job - check out the next section.
XML::Simple is able to present a simple API because it makes some assumptions on your behalf. These include:
In a serious XML project, you'll probably outgrow these assumptions fairly quickly. This section of the document used to offer some advice on chosing a more powerful option. That advice has now grown into the 'Perl-XML FAQ' document which you can find at: http://perl-xml.sourceforge.net/faq/
The advice in the FAQ boils down to a quick explanation of tree versus event based parsers and then recommends:
For event based parsing, use SAX (do not set out to write any new code for XML::Parser's handler API - it is obselete).
For tree-based parsing, you could choose between the 'Perlish' approach of XML::Twig and more standards based DOM implementations - preferably one with XPath support.
XML::Simple requires either XML::Parser or XML::SAX.
To generate documents with namespaces, XML::NamespaceSupport is required.
The optional caching functions require Storable.
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about XML::Simple are bundled with this distribution as: XML::Simple::FAQ
Copyright 1999-2004 Grant McLean <grantm@cpan.org>
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.