Parsing XML using boost c++

Question

I have some XML that looks like this:

<animal> 
    <name>shark</name> 
    <color>blue</color>
</animal>
<animal> 
    <name>dog</name> 
    <color>black</color>
</animal>

I'm trying to print only the animal names (shark and dog). I am using boost so I tried the following code:

ptree pt;
boost::property_tree::read_xml("animals.xml", pt);
BOOST_FOREACH(boost::property_tree::ptree::value_type &v, pt.get_child("animal"))
{
    std::cout << v.second.data() << std::endl;
}

But it only prints shark and blue. I'm not sure what the problem is, and I can't find good examples. Can someone offer some advice?

Grady Player · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-12 14:54:32Z

2

xml has to have only one root object... you have 2.. try something like:

<animals>
  <animal> 
    <name>shark</name> 
    <color>blue</color>
  </animal>
  <animal> 
    <name>dog</name> 
    <color>black</color>
  </animal>
</animals>

answered Nov 12, 2015 at 14:54

Grady Player

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3 Comments

Grady Player Over a year ago

@YoavCohen, then your "XML" parser is working ok... if what you have is something that isn't XML, you can try to cajole it into being xml or maybe your parser has has options to support your scenario... but it would be like if you said your C compiler needs to accept int73_t i = "zebra"; because that is what you are given...

Yoav Cohen Over a year ago

well this is not in my control how many roots this xml(or whatever i got ) has. there is no way to implement a parser for this kind of file?

Grady Player Over a year ago

@YoavCohen absolutely there is a way to implement a parser for that kind of File, but what I would do, would be to set up a stringstream inject a root object tag, then inject your payload then inject a root object close tag, then use the sting from that as your xml object...

sehe · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-12 17:24:46Z

1

To my surprise, PugiXML supports it out of the box:

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <pugixml.hpp>

int main() {
    pugi::xml_document doc;
    std::ifstream ifs("input.txt", std::ios::binary);

    pugi::xml_parse_result r = doc.load(ifs, pugi::parse_default);

    std::cout << "PARSED " << r.status << " (" << r.description() << "):\n";
    doc.save(std::cout, "  ", pugi::format_default);
    std::cout << "DONE\n";
}

Prints

PARSED 0 (No error):
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<animal>
  <name>shark</name>
  <color>blue</color>
</animal>
<animal>
  <name>dog</name>
  <color>black</color>
</animal>
DONE

answered Nov 12, 2015 at 17:24

sehe

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