Tiny XML library.
Mini-XML is a small XML parsing library that you can use to read XML data files or strings in your application without requiring large non-standard libraries. Mini-XML only requires a "make" program and an ANSI C compatible compiler - GCC works, as do most vendors' ANSI C compilers.
Mini-XML provides the following functionality:
Mini-XML doesn't do validation or other types of processing on the data based upon schema files or other sources of definition information.
Note: Version 3.0 hides the definition of the
mxml_node_tstructure, requiring the use of the various accessor functions that were introduced in version 2.0.
Mini-XML comes with an autoconf-based configure script; just type the following command to get things going:
./configure
The default install prefix is
/usr/local, which can be overridden using the
--prefixoption:
./configure --prefix=/foo
Other configure options can be found using the
--helpoption:
./configure --help
Once you have configured the software, type
maketo do the build and run the test program to verify that things are working, as follows:
make
If you are using Mini-XML under Microsoft Windows with Visual C++, use the included project files in the
vcnetsubdirectory to build the library instead. Note: The static library on Windows is NOT thread-safe.
The
installtarget will install Mini-XML in the lib and include directories:
make install
Once you have installed it, use the
-lmxmloption to link your application against it.
The documentation is available in the
docsubdirectory in the files
mxml.html(HTML) and
mxml.epub(EPUB). You can also look at the
testmxml.csource file for examples of using Mini-XML.
Mini-XML provides a single header file which you include:
#include
Nodes (elements, comments, processing directives, integers, opaque strings, real numbers, and text strings) are represented by
mxml_node_tobjects. New nodes can be created using the
mxmlNewElement(),
mxmlNewInteger(),
mxmlNewOpaque(),
mxmlNewReal(), and
mxmlNewText()functions. Only elements can have child nodes, and the top node must be the "?xml" processing directive.
You load an XML file using the
mxmlLoadFile()function:
FILE *fp; mxml_node_t *tree;fp = fopen("filename.xml", "r"); tree = mxmlLoadFile(NULL, fp, MXML_OPAQUE_CALLBACK); fclose(fp);
Similarly, you save an XML file using the
mxmlSaveFile()function:
FILE *fp; mxml_node_t *tree;fp = fopen("filename.xml", "w"); mxmlSaveFile(tree, fp, MXML_NO_CALLBACK); fclose(fp);
The
mxmlLoadString(),
mxmlSaveAllocString(), and
mxmlSaveString()functions load XML node trees from and save XML node trees to strings:
char buffer[8192]; char *ptr; mxml_node_t *tree;... tree = mxmlLoadString(NULL, buffer, MXML_OPAQUE_CALLBACK);
... mxmlSaveString(tree, buffer, sizeof(buffer), MXML_NO_CALLBACK);
... ptr = mxmlSaveAllocString(tree, MXML_NO_CALLBACK);
You can find a named element/node using the
mxmlFindElement()function:
mxml_node_t *node = mxmlFindElement(tree, tree, "name", "attr", "value", MXML_DESCEND);
The
name,
attr, and
valuearguments can be passed as
NULLto act as wildcards, e.g.:
/* Find the first "a" element */ node = mxmlFindElement(tree, tree, "a", NULL, NULL, MXML_DESCEND);/* Find the first "a" element with "href" attribute */ node = mxmlFindElement(tree, tree, "a", "href", NULL, MXML_DESCEND);
/* Find the first "a" element with "href" to a URL */ node = mxmlFindElement(tree, tree, "a", "href", "http://www.minixml.org/", MXML_DESCEND);
/* Find the first element with a "src" attribute*/ node = mxmlFindElement(tree, tree, NULL, "src", NULL, MXML_DESCEND);
/* Find the first element with a "src" = "foo.jpg" */ node = mxmlFindElement(tree, tree, NULL, "src", "foo.jpg", MXML_DESCEND);
You can also iterate with the same function:
mxml_node_t *node;for (node = mxmlFindElement(tree, tree, "name", NULL, NULL, MXML_DESCEND); node != NULL; node = mxmlFindElement(node, tree, "name", NULL, NULL, MXML_DESCEND)) { ... do something ... }
The
mxmlFindPath()function finds the (first) value node under a specific element using an XPath:
mxml_node_t *value = mxmlFindPath(tree, "path/to/*/foo/bar");
The
mxmlGetInteger(),
mxmlGetOpaque(),
mxmlGetReal(), and
mxmlGetText()functions retrieve the corresponding value from a node:
mxml_node_t *node;int intvalue = mxmlGetInteger(node);
const char *opaquevalue = mxmlGetOpaque(node);
double realvalue = mxmlGetReal(node);
int whitespacevalue; const char *textvalue = mxmlGetText(node, &whitespacevalue);
Finally, once you are done with the XML data, use the
mxmlDelete()function to recursively free the memory that is used for a particular node or the entire tree:
mxmlDelete(tree);
The Mini-XML project page provides access to the current version of this software, documentation, and Github issue tracking page.
Copyright © 2003-2020 by Michael R Sweet
The Mini-XML library is licensed under the Apache License Version 2.0 with an optional exception to allow linking against GPL2/LGPL2-only software. See the files "LICENSE" and "NOTICE" for more information.
Note: The exception listed in the NOTICE file only applies when linking against GPL2/LGPL2-only software. Some Apache License purists have objected to linking Apache Licensed code against Mini-XML with these exceptions on the grounds that it makes Mini-XML somehow incompatible with the Apache License. For that reason, people wishing to retain their Apache License purity may omit the exception from their copy of Mini-XML.
Note 2: IANAL, but I am beginning to dislike them!