xml formatting

Report · Nov 25, 2009

the following code writes to an xml document. the problem is it writes everything to the same line. when i go to parse the xml doc i get an error. i would like to modify this code to write each node to it own line.

before code my xml files looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<messageList>
     <message>
            <sender>bob</sender>
            <creator>tom</creator>

</message>

</messagelist>

my code does this to the xml file which does not parse.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<messageList>

     <message><sender>Bill</sender><creator>Dave</creator></message><message>
       <sender>winter</sender>
       <creator>winter</creator>

</message>

</messagelist>

Report · Nov 25, 2009

What is tyring to parse this?

XML is supposed to be white space agnostic and not care how the file is spaced.

Your version is a little hard for humans, but a parser should not care.

Report · Nov 25, 2009

not following the humans thing but here goes. i grap an exisiting doc and parse it in a CFC

i grab data from a form and insert it into the xml doc. that works fine. when i try to modify the xml a second time

it gives me a parsing error. if i update the newly written data on the xml doc manually, placing each node on its own line the xml doc will update. this is how i know my data is correct but formatting is not

Report · Nov 25, 2009

Show us the code. All of it.

Report · Nov 25, 2009

here is the code for the cfc object. the form data is in the variable. this cfc gets called each time the form gets filled out and changes need to be made to the xml doc

<cfcomponent displayname="updatexml" hint="">
<cfscript>
    //get user info needed   struct name , var name
   objUser = createObject("component", request.rootPath&".user");
   objUser.getUserProperty("frmSender", "Sender");
   objUser.getUserProperty("frmRequester", "creator");
   objUser.getUserProperty("frmStartDate", "StartDate");
   objUser.getUserProperty("frmStartTime", "StartTime");
   objUser.getUserProperty("frmEndDate", "EndDate");
   objUser.getUserProperty("frmEndTime", "EndTime");
   objUser.getUserProperty("frmMessage", "messageText");
   objUser.getUserProperty("selectOptionList", "OptionList");


// objUser.getUserProperty("frmexthome", "ehome");
// objUser.getUserProperty("frmextdatawarehouse", "extdata");
</cfscript>

<cffunction name="newmessage" hint="adds new message to messages.xml . Data comes from addUserMessage.cfm, returns boolean" output="yes" access="public" returntype="string">

     <cfscript>
    var send = "#request.Sender#";
     var creat = "#request.creator#";
    var sdate = "#request.StartDate#";
    var edate = "#request.EndDate#";
    var mess = "#request.messageText#";
    var opt = "#request.OptionList#";
    var stime = "#request.StartTime#";
    var etime = "#request.EndTime#";
   </cfscript>

      
      <cfset StartTime=#stime#>
            <cfset EndTime=#etime#>

   
            <cfset startdatetime = DateFormat("#sdate#" , "yyyymmdd" )& "" & TimeFormat("#StartTime#", "Hhmm")>
            <cfset enddatetime   = DateFormat("#edate#" , "yyyymmdd" ) & "" & TimeFormat("#EndTime#", "Hhmm")>

<cfset myArrayList = ListToArray(opt)>

<cfhttp url="messages.xml" method="GET">

      
   <cfset today = dateFormat(now(), "mm/dd/yyyy")>

         <cfset xApps = XmlParse(cfhttp.FileContent)>

          <cfset variables.CrLf = Chr(13) & Chr(10)>

   <cfset arrayInsertAt(xApps.messageList.xmlChildren,1,xmlElemNew(xApps,'message'))>
            <cfset xApps.messageList.message[1].sender = xmlElemNew(xApps,'sender')>
      <cfset xApps.messageList.message[1].sender.xmlText = "#send#">
              <cfset xApps.messageList.message[1].creator = xmlElemNew(xApps,'creator')>
      <cfset xApps.messageList.message[1].creator.xmlText = "#creat#">
      <cfset xApps.messageList.message[1].dateCreated = xmlElemNew(xApps,'dateCreated')>
      <cfset xApps.messageList.message[1].dateCreated.xmlText = "#today#">
      <cfset xApps.messageList.message[1].startDate = xmlElemNew(xApps,'startDate')>
            <cfset xApps.messageList.message[1].startDate.xmlText = "#startdatetime#">
      <cfset xApps.messageList.message[1].endDate = xmlElemNew(xApps,'endDate')>
        <cfset xApps.messageList.message[1].endDate.xmlText = "#enddatetime#">
      <cfset xApps.messageList.message[1].messageText = xmlElemNew(xApps,'messageText')>
      <cfset xApps.messageList.message[1].messageText.xmlText = "#mess#">
       
       <cfloop from="1" to="#arraylen(myArrayList)#" index="j">
         <cfset arrayInsertAt(xApps.messageList.message.xmlChildren, j,xmlElemNew(xApps,'forPage'))>

               <cfset tempvar= #myArrayList#>
                  <cfset tempvar2= #trim(tempvar)#>
                  <cfset xApps.messageList.message[1].forPage.xmlText= "#tempvar2#">
           </cfloop>

<cffile action="write" file="/webdocs/intranet/cfapps/userMessageDev/userMessage/messages.xml"
        output=#toString(xApps)#>

          
    
    
          


   <cfreturn xApps />
</cffunction>
</cfcomponent>

Report · Nov 25, 2009

Add charset attributes to all cfhttp and cffile calls. For the rest nothing obvious, I'll try to run it later.

Report · Nov 25, 2009

jsiggia wrote:
not following the humans thing

A human looking at an XML document generally cares about line breaks and nested tag indention for ease of readability.

A computer shouldn't. The XML specification indicates that parsers are not supposed to care.

Report · Nov 25, 2009

got it. i am a db guy and used to seeing things in rows and columns. this

is my first web app. there must be something i am missing. when i reformat

the data i have just sent to them xml doc by open the doc in dreamweaver

and pressing enter after each node and saving i am able to parse and update

doc

thanks

Message was edited by jochemd to remove an email address

Report · Nov 25, 2009

jsiggia wrote:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<messageList>
     <message><sender>Bill</sender><creator>Dave</creator></message><message>
       <sender>winter</sender>
       <creator>winter</creator>
    </message>
</messagelist>

Is this an actual copy from your output, or did you type this in? If the former, then the problem is the <messageList>...</messagelist> tags. While the XML specification indicates it is to be white space agnostic, it is also to be case sensitive. Thus the <messageList> with an upper case 'L" and </messagelist> with a lower case 'l" are not matching tags.

Upon fixing the case issue the following code worked just as expected on my system.

<cfsavecontent variable="xml"><?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<messageList>

     <message><sender>Bill</sender><creator>Dave</creator></message><message>
       <sender>winter</sender>
       <creator>winter</creator>

    </message>

</messageList></cfsavecontent>

<cfset xApps = xmlParse(xml)>
<cfdump var="#xApps#">

If the case of the "L" was just a typo in the forum post, then the problem might be with actual data? Again is this the actual output or is a simplified example where the actual output might contain special characters such as ampersand "&" characters?

If this is the case, you may not be able to just cut and paste the XML from a browser and parse it.

Report · Nov 25, 2009

this is a simplified example . i will check the xml doc on monday for the L vs l but i believe that is also a typo on my part. i appreicate your time..enjoy the holiday

Report · Dec 01, 2009

i cleaned up the data on my xml file to simplify it and make it easier to debug. I also update code to include charset value. my xml doc is updating correctly now. thank you for your time and help with this issue

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xml formatting