How to render xml content in a HTML table using CGI Perl

Question

I am trying to display an XML content (which is a SOAP request) in a simple HTML table using CGI Perl. However, the XML content is getting truncated inside the table cell. Can anybody suggest a solution to render the XML properly in the HTML page?

Below is the code :

use strict;

use CGI;
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);

my $qry = new CGI;

&show_html();


sub show_html {
    $qry->header();
    $qry->start_html(-bgcolor=>'#FFFFFF', -title=>'Rendering XML');
    my $body = &display_page();
    print $body;

    $qry->end_html;
}

sub display_page {

    my $html = qq{
        <table border="1">
        <tr>
            <th> Key </th>
            <th>Value</th>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td> SOAP </td>
            <td>POST /Quotation HTTP/1.0 Host: www.demohost Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8 Content-Length: nnn  <?xml version="1.0"?> <SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://www.demourl1/2001/12/soap-envelope" SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://www.demourl2/2001/12/soap-encoding" >     <SOAP-ENV:Body xmlns:m="http://www.demourl3/quotations" >              <m:GetQuotation>          <m:QuotationsName>MiscroSoft</m:QuotationsName>       </m:GetQuotation>                  </SOAP-ENV:Body>      </SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
            </td>
        </tr>
        </table>
    };
    return $html;

}

Please don't use an ampersand & when calling Perl subroutines. That hasn't been correct since Perl v5.5 was released seventeen years ago — Borodin
– Borodin, Commented Dec 2, 2015 at 12:15

Quentin · Accepted Answer · 2015-12-02 12:10:20Z

2

XML is full of characters like < and & which has special meaning in HTML.

You need to encode them.

That is typically done using the HTML::Entities module.

use HTML::Entities;
my $html_encoded_string = encode_entities($raw_xml_string);

Alternatively, use a template language which supports HTML filtering.

In Template-Toolkit, for instance, you would do something along the lines of:

<td>[% raw_xml_string | html %]</td>

You could also use CGI.pm's HTML generating functions (as you are doing in show_html but they are marked HTML Generation functions should no longer be used so you really should stop using them in show_html.

The CGI.pm documentation recommends the Template approach.

edited Dec 2, 2015 at 12:10

answered Dec 2, 2015 at 12:03

Quentin

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1 Comment

H.Burns Over a year ago

This is partially working, still few characters are spilling out of that <td></td> element here and there.

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