xml-formatter

What is xml-formatter?

The xml-formatter npm package is a utility for formatting XML strings. It helps in making XML data more readable by properly indenting the XML elements. This can be particularly useful for debugging, logging, or displaying XML data in a user-friendly format.

What are xml-formatter's main functionalities?

Basic Formatting

This feature allows you to format a simple XML string, making it more readable by adding appropriate indentation.

const xmlFormatter = require('xml-formatter');
const xml = '<root><child>value</child></root>';
const formattedXml = xmlFormatter(xml);
console.log(formattedXml);

Custom Indentation

This feature allows you to specify custom indentation for the formatted XML string. In this example, two spaces are used for indentation.

const xmlFormatter = require('xml-formatter');
const xml = '<root><child>value</child></root>';
const formattedXml = xmlFormatter(xml, { indentation: '  ' });
console.log(formattedXml);

Removing XML Declarations

This feature allows you to remove XML declarations from the formatted XML string. This can be useful if you want a cleaner output without the XML declaration.

const xmlFormatter = require('xml-formatter');
const xml = '<?xml version="1.0"?><root><child>value</child></root>';
const formattedXml = xmlFormatter(xml, { stripComments: true });
console.log(formattedXml);

Handling Large XML Strings

This feature demonstrates the ability of xml-formatter to handle and format large XML strings efficiently.

const xmlFormatter = require('xml-formatter');
const largeXml = '<root>' + '<child>value</child>'.repeat(1000) + '</root>';
const formattedXml = xmlFormatter(largeXml);
console.log(formattedXml);

Other packages similar to xml-formatter

pretty-data

The pretty-data package provides similar functionality for formatting XML, JSON, and CSS data. It offers a broader range of data formatting options compared to xml-formatter, which is specialized for XML.

xml2js

The xml2js package is primarily used for converting XML to JavaScript objects and vice versa. While it does offer some formatting capabilities, its main focus is on XML parsing and building, making it more versatile for data manipulation tasks.

xmlbuilder

The xmlbuilder package is designed for building XML documents using a simple and chainable API. It also includes formatting options, but its primary strength lies in creating XML documents programmatically.

README

xml-formatter

Converts XML into a human readable format (pretty print) while respecting the xml:space attribute.

Reciprocally, the xml-formatter package can minify pretty printed XML.

The xml-formatter package can also be used on the browser using the browserified version with a small footprint.

Installation

$ npm install xml-formatter

Example

Usage:

import xmlFormat from 'xml-formatter';

xmlFormat('<root><content><p xml:space="preserve">This is <b>some</b> content.</content></p>');

Output:

<root>
    <content>
        <p xml:space="preserve">This is <b>some</b> content.</p>
    </content>
</root>

Options

• filter: Function to filter out unwanted nodes by returning false.
  • type: function(node) => boolean
  • default: () => true
• ignoredPaths: List of XML element paths to ignore during formatting. This can be a partial path (element tag name) or full path starting from the document element e.g. ['/html/head/script', 'pre'].
  • type: string[]
  • default: []
• indentation: The value used for indentation.
  • type: string
  • default: ' '
• collapseContent: True to keep content in the same line as the element. Only works if element contains at least one text node.
  • type: boolean
  • default: false
• lineSeparator: Specify the line separator to use.
  • type: string
  • default: \r\n
• whiteSpaceAtEndOfSelfclosingTag: True to end self-closing tags with a space e.g. <tag />.
  • type: boolean
  • default: false
• throwOnFailure: Throw an error when XML fails to parse and get formatted otherwise the original XML is returned.
  • type: boolean
  • default: true
• forceSelfClosingEmptyTag: True to force empty tags to be self-closing.
  • type: boolean
  • default: false

Usage:

import xmlFormat from 'xml-formatter';

xmlFormat('<root><!-- content --><content><p>This is <b>some</b> content.</content></p>', {
    indentation: '  ', 
    filter: (node) => node.type !== 'Comment', 
    collapseContent: true, 
    lineSeparator: '\n'
});

Output:

<root>
  <content>
    <p>This is <b>some</b> content.</p>
  </content>
</root>

Minify mode

Usage:

import xmlFormat from 'xml-formatter';

const xml = `
<root>
  <content>
    <p>
        This is <b>some</b> content.
    </p>
  </content>
</root>`;

xmlFormat.minify(xml, {
    filter: (node) => node.type !== 'Comment',
    collapseContent: true
});

Output:

<root><content><p>This is<b>some</b>content.</p></content></root>

On The Browser

The code is transpiled using Babel with @babel/preset-env default values and bundled using browserify.

Using require('xml-formatter')

Page:

<script type="text/javascript" src="dist/browser/xml-formatter.js"></script>

Usage:

const xmlFormatter = require('xml-formatter');

xmlFormat('<root><content><p xml:space="preserve">This is <b>some</b> content.</content></p>');

Using global function xmlFormatter

Page:

<script type="text/javascript" src="dist/browser/xml-formatter-singleton.js"></script>

Usage:

xmlFormatter('<root><content><p xml:space="preserve">This is <b>some</b> content.</content></p>');

Output

<root>
    <content>
        <p xml:space="preserve">This is <b>some</b> content.</p>
    </content>
</root>

License

MIT