PHP XML how to output nice format

Question

Here are the codes:

$doc = new DomDocument('1.0');
// create root node
$root = $doc->createElement('root');
$root = $doc->appendChild($root);
$signed_values = array('a' => 'eee', 'b' => 'sd', 'c' => 'df');
// process one row at a time
foreach ($signed_values as $key => $val) {
    // add node for each row
    $occ = $doc->createElement('error');
    $occ = $root->appendChild($occ);
    // add a child node for each field
    foreach ($signed_values as $fieldname => $fieldvalue) {
        $child = $doc->createElement($fieldname);
        $child = $occ->appendChild($child);
        $value = $doc->createTextNode($fieldvalue);
        $value = $child->appendChild($value);
    }
}
// get completed xml document
$xml_string = $doc->saveXML() ;
echo $xml_string;

If I print it in the browser I don't get nice XML structure like

<xml> \n tab <child> etc.

I just get

<xml><child>ee</child></xml>

And I want to be utf-8 How is this all possible to do?

About your utf-8 issue, just add it to the object as a second parameter like $doc = new DOMDocument("1.0", "UTF-8"); — Thielicious
– Thielicious, Commented Aug 23, 2016 at 17:59

hakre · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-07 19:53:05Z

134

You can try to do this:

...
// get completed xml document
$doc->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
$doc->formatOutput = true;
$xml_string = $doc->saveXML();
echo $xml_string;

You can make set these parameter right after you've created the DOMDocument as well:

$doc = new DomDocument('1.0');
$doc->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
$doc->formatOutput = true;

That's probably more concise. Output in both cases is (Demo):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <error>
    <a>eee</a>
    <b>sd</b>
    <c>df</c>
  </error>
  <error>
    <a>eee</a>
    <b>sd</b>
    <c>df</c>
  </error>
  <error>
    <a>eee</a>
    <b>sd</b>
    <c>df</c>
  </error>
</root>

I'm not aware how to change the indentation character(s) with DOMDocument. You could post-process the XML with a line-by-line regular-expression based replacing (e.g. with preg_replace):

$xml_string = preg_replace('/(?:^|\G)  /um', "\t", $xml_string);

Alternatively, there is the tidy extension with tidy_repair_string which can pretty print XML data as well. It's possible to specify indentation levels with it, however tidy will never output tabs.

tidy_repair_string($xml_string, ['input-xml'=> 1, 'indent' => 1, 'wrap' => 0]);

edited Mar 7, 2015 at 19:53

answered Dec 23, 2011 at 11:24

hakre

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3 Comments

hakre Over a year ago

Related: Debug a DOMDocument Object in PHP for a more controlled form of XML printing.

hakre Over a year ago

Related: Converting indentation with preg_replace (no callback)

Jeff Puckett Over a year ago

I've discovered that "You can make set these parameter right after you've created the DOMDocument as well" is not a great idea if you use saveXML while processing/comparing it with another document because it can lead to unexpected results. Best to format output right before you need to output.

Álvaro González · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-02 11:02:48Z

42

With a SimpleXml object, you can simply

$domxml = new DOMDocument('1.0');
$domxml->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
$domxml->formatOutput = true;
/* @var $xml SimpleXMLElement */
$domxml->loadXML($xml->asXML());
$domxml->save($newfile);

$xml is your simplexml object

So then you simpleXml can be saved as a new file specified by $newfile

edited Jun 2, 2015 at 11:02

Álvaro González

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answered Jul 30, 2013 at 13:47

heavenevil

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2 Comments

Álvaro González Over a year ago

@quickshiftin - Input data is an instance of SimpleXMLElement. I'll edit the answer to make it more obvious. Whatever, I agree that what you feed DOMDocument with is actually irrelevant.

user1742529 Over a year ago

additionally, you can use ` $domxml->encoding = "UTF-8"` after loadXML before save.

sigkill · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-11 10:43:22Z

25

<?php

$xml = $argv[1];

$dom = new DOMDocument();

// Initial block (must before load xml string)
$dom->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
$dom->formatOutput = true;
// End initial block

$dom->loadXML($xml);
$out = $dom->saveXML();

print_R($out);

answered Jan 11, 2016 at 10:43

sigkill

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1 Comment

Robert Over a year ago

could you also add an explanation?

Take · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-03 05:48:28Z

12

Tried all the answers but none worked. Maybe it's because I'm appending and removing childs before saving the XML. After a lot of googling found this comment in the php documentation. I only had to reload the resulting XML to make it work.

$outXML = $xml->saveXML(); 
$xml = new DOMDocument(); 
$xml->preserveWhiteSpace = false; 
$xml->formatOutput = true; 
$xml->loadXML($outXML); 
$outXML = $xml->saveXML();

answered Feb 3, 2018 at 5:48

Take

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Comments

René · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-14 10:24:40Z

6

// ##### IN SUMMARY #####

$xmlFilepath = 'test.xml';
echoFormattedXML($xmlFilepath);

/*
 * echo xml in source format
 */
function echoFormattedXML($xmlFilepath) {
    header('Content-Type: text/xml'); // to show source, not execute the xml
    echo formatXML($xmlFilepath); // format the xml to make it readable
} // echoFormattedXML

/*
 * format xml so it can be easily read but will use more disk space
 */
function formatXML($xmlFilepath) {
    $loadxml = simplexml_load_file($xmlFilepath);

    $dom = new DOMDocument('1.0');
    $dom->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
    $dom->formatOutput = true;
    $dom->loadXML($loadxml->asXML());
    $formatxml = new SimpleXMLElement($dom->saveXML());
    //$formatxml->saveXML("testF.xml"); // save as file

    return $formatxml->saveXML();
} // formatXML

answered Sep 14, 2017 at 10:24

René

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2 Comments

baris1892 Over a year ago

upvoted, because this answer contains a complete example!

Kevinleary.net Over a year ago

Great answer, this was the only option that fully worked in my circumstance (working with RSS XML).

automatix · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-04 11:27:27Z

4

Two different issues here:

Set the formatOutput and preserveWhiteSpace attributes to TRUE to generate formatted XML:
```
$doc->formatOutput = TRUE;
$doc->preserveWhiteSpace = TRUE;
```
Many web browsers (namely Internet Explorer and Firefox) format XML when they display it. Use either the View Source feature or a regular text editor to inspect the output.

4 Comments

hakre Over a year ago

preserveWhiteSpace = TRUE can get in your way when you do pretty printing with DOMDocument - just FYI, not with the example given in question, but if you load from existing files that have actually whitespace textnodes.

Yang Over a year ago

@hakre Why preserveWhiteSpace = TRUE works fine with XML, but doesn't work with HTML?

Den Over a year ago

To let the browser format it, a proper MIME type has to be set. For example whit: header('Content-type: text/xml');

gog Over a year ago

I actually neeeded to see the whitespaces, so this was the correct answer for me

Pancho · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-14 13:18:41Z

This is a slight variation of the above theme but I'm putting here in case others hit this and cannot make sense of it ...as I did.

When using saveXML(), preserveWhiteSpace in the target DOMdocument does not apply to imported nodes (as at PHP 5.6).

Consider the following code:

$dom = new DOMDocument();                               //create a document
$dom->preserveWhiteSpace = false;                       //disable whitespace preservation
$dom->formatOutput = true;                              //pretty print output
$documentElement = $dom->createElement("Entry");        //create a node
$dom->appendChild ($documentElement);                   //append it 
$message = new DOMDocument();                           //create another document
$message->loadXML($messageXMLtext);                     //populate the new document from XML text
$node=$dom->importNode($message->documentElement,true); //import the new document content to a new node in the original document
$documentElement->appendChild($node);                   //append the new node to the document Element
$dom->saveXML($dom->documentElement);                   //print the original document

In this context, the $dom->saveXML(); statement will NOT pretty print the content imported from $message, but content originally in $dom will be pretty printed.

In order to achieve pretty printing for the entire $dom document, the line:

$message->preserveWhiteSpace = false;

must be included after the $message = new DOMDocument(); line - ie. the document/s from which the nodes are imported must also have preserveWhiteSpace = false.

Ruben Estrada · Accepted Answer · 2022-03-25 01:26:11Z

0

based on the answer by @heavenevil This function pretty prints using the browser

function prettyPrintXmlToBrowser(SimpleXMLElement $xml)
{
    $domXml = new DOMDocument('1.0');
    $domXml->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
    $domXml->formatOutput = true;
    $domXml->loadXML($xml->asXML());
    $xmlString = $domXml->saveXML();
    echo nl2br(str_replace(' ', '&nbsp;', htmlspecialchars($xmlString)));
}

answered Mar 25, 2022 at 1:26

Ruben Estrada

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