How can I parse an empty element with tinyxml2?

Question

Using tinyXml2, I can parse

<MSG_TIME>2010-07-01 14:28:20</MSG_TIME>

just fine, but

<MSG_TIME></MSG_TIME>

and

<MSG_TIME/>

both throw exceptions in C++ when those are perfectly valid XML (to my knowledge). Does anyone have a fix or suggestion for this? I do not control the source of this XML, and I need to be error tolerant.

Does the xsd you're using prevent empty elements -- stackoverflow.com/questions/4126646/…? — hd1
– hd1, Commented Dec 31, 2012 at 21:42
Report the bug to the authors of the library (and, if you can, fix it yourself). Meanwhile I would go for a better XML parsing library, like pugixml (my favorite). — Yakov Galka
– Yakov Galka, Commented Dec 31, 2012 at 21:47

GameDev · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-27 02:41:07Z

6

This answer assumes you're trying to load valid XML with an empty element.

XMLElement::GetText() returns nullptr if the element is empty, so you can do a simple check like this:

std::string szData;

// Get the element
XMLElement pElement = xmlDoc.FirstChildElement("MyElement");

// Check whether the element contains data & if so, extract it as text
if (pElement->GetText() != nullptr) szData = poElement->GetText();

This question actually pointed out a bug with the TinyXML2 tutorial I wrote a few months ago, so thanks for posting it! :)

edited Jul 27, 2014 at 2:41

answered Jul 27, 2014 at 2:32

GameDev

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