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NAME

XML::Rules - parse XML and specify what and how to keep/process for individual tags

VERSION

Version 1.15

SYNOPSIS

use XML::Rules;

$xml = <<'*END*';
<doc>
 <person>
  <fname>...</fname>
  <lname>...</lname>
  <email>...</email>
  <address>
   <street>...</street>
   <city>...</city>
   <country>...</country>
   <bogus>...</bogus>
  </address>
  <phones>
   <phone type="home">123-456-7890</phone>
   <phone type="office">663-486-7890</phone>
   <phone type="fax">663-486-7000</phone>
  </phones>
 </person>
 <person>
  <fname>...</fname>
  <lname>...</lname>
  <email>...</email>
  <address>
   <street>...</street>
   <city>...</city>
   <country>...</country>
   <bogus>...</bogus>
  </address>
  <phones>
   <phone type="office">663-486-7891</phone>
  </phones>
 </person>
</doc>
*END*

@rules = (
	_default => sub {$_[0] => $_[1]->{_content}},
		# by default I'm only interested in the content of the tag, not the attributes
	bogus => undef,
		# let's ignore this tag and all inner ones as well
	address => sub {address => "$_[1]->{street}, $_[1]->{city} ($_[1]->{country})"},
		# merge the address into a single string
	phone => sub {$_[1]->{type} => $_[1]->{_content}},
		# let's use the "type" attribute as the key and the content as the value
	phones => sub {delete $_[1]->{_content}; %{$_[1]}},
		# remove the text content and pass along the type => content from the child nodes
	person => sub { # lets print the values, all the data is readily available in the attributes
		print "$_[1]->{lname}, $_[1]->{fname} <$_[1]->{email}>\n";
		print "Home phone: $_[1]->{home}\n" if $_[1]->{home};
		print "Office phone: $_[1]->{office}\n" if $_[1]->{office};
		print "Fax: $_[1]->{fax}\n" if $_[1]->{fax};
		print "$_[1]->{address}\n\n";
		return; # the <person> tag is processed, no need to remember what it contained
	},
);
$parser = XML::Rules->new(rules => \@rules);
$parser->parse( $xml);

INTRODUCTION

There are several ways to extract data from XML. One that's often used is to read the whole file and transform it into a huge maze of objects and then write code like

foreach my $obj ($XML->forTheLifeOfMyMotherGiveMeTheFirstChildNamed("Peter")->pleaseBeSoKindAndGiveMeAllChildrenNamedSomethingLike("Jane")) {
	my $obj2 = $obj->sorryToKeepBotheringButINeedTheChildNamed("Theophile");
	my $birth = $obj2->whatsTheValueOfAttribute("BirthDate");
	print "Theophile was born at $birth\n";
}

I'm exagerating of course, but you probably know what I mean. You can of course shorten the path and call just one method ... that is if you spend the time to learn one more "cool" thing starting with X. XPath.

You can also use XML::Simple and generate an almost equaly huge maze of hashes and arrays ... which may make the code more or less complex. In either case you need to have enough memory to store all that data, even if you only need a piece here and there.

Another way to parse the XML is to create some subroutines that handle the start and end tags and the text and whatever else may appear in the XML. Some modules will let you specify just one for start tag, one for text and one for end tag, others will let you install different handlers for different tags. The catch is that you have to build your data structures yourself, you have to know where you are, what tag is just open and what is the parent and its parent etc. so that you could add the attributes and especially the text to the right place. And the handlers have to do everything as their side effect. Does anyone remember what do they say about side efects? They make the code hard to debug, they tend to change the code into a maze of interdependent snippets of code.

So what's the difference in the way XML::Rules works? At the first glance, not much. You can also specify subroutines to be called for the tags encountered while parsing the XML, just like the other even based XML parsers. The difference is that you do not have to rely on side-effects if all you want is to store the value of a tag. You simply return whatever you need from the current tag and the module will add it at the right place in the data structure it builds and will provide it to the handlers for the parent tag. And if the parent tag does return that data again it will be passed to its parent and so forth. Until we get to the level at which it's convenient to handle all the data we accumulated from the twig.

Do we want to keep just the content and access it in the parent tag handler under a specific name?

foo => sub {return 'foo' => $_[1]->{_content}}

Do we want to ornament the content a bit and add it to the parent tag's content?

u => sub {return '_' . $_[1]->{_content} . '_'}
strong =>  sub {return '*' . $_[1]->{_content} . '*'}
uc =>  sub {return uc($_[1]->{_content})}

Do we want to merge the attributes into a string and access the string from the parent tag under a specified name?

address => sub {return 'Address' => "Street: $_[1]->{street} $_[1]->{bldngNo}\nCity: $_[1]->{city}\nCountry: $_[1]->{country}\nPostal code: $_[1]->{zip}"}

and in this case the $_[1]->{street} may either be an attribute of the <address> tag or it may be ther result of the handler (rule)

street => sub {return 'street' => $_[1]->{_content}}

and thus come from a child tag <street>. You may also use the rules to convert codes to values

	our %states = (
	  AL => 'Alabama',
	  AK => 'Alaska',
	  ...
	);
	...
	state => sub {return 'state' => $states{$_[1]->{_content}}; }

 or

	address => sub {
		if (exists $_[1]->{id}) {
			$sthFetchAddress->execute($_[1]->{id});
			my $addr = $sthFetchAddress->fetchrow_hashref();
			$sthFetchAddress->finish();
			return 'address' => $addr;
		} else {
			return 'address' => $_[1];
		}
	}

so that you do not have to care whether there was

<address id="147"/>

<address><street>Larry Wall's St.</street><streetno>478</streetno><city>Core</city><country>The Programming Republic of Perl</country></address>

And if you do not like to end up with a datastructure of plain old arrays and hashes, you can create application specific objects in the rules

address => sub {
	my $type = lc(delete $_[1]->{type});
	$type.'Address' => MyApp::Address->new(%{$_[1]})
},
person => sub {
	'@person' => MyApp::Person->new(
		firstname => $_[1]->{fname},
		lastname => $_[1]->{lname},
		deliveryAddress => $_[1]->{deliveryAddress},
		billingAddress => $_[1]->{billingAddress},
		phone => $_[1]->{phone},
	)
}

At each level in the tree structure serialized as XML you can decide what to keep, what to throw away, what to transform and then just return the stuff you care about and it will be available to the handler at the next level.

CONSTRUCTOR

my $parser = XML::Rules->new(
	rules => \@rules,
	[ start_rules => \@start_rules, ]
	[ stripspaces => 0 / 1 / 2 / 3   +   0 / 4   +   0 / 8, ]
	[ normalisespaces => 0 / 1, ]
	[ style => 'parser' / 'filter', ]
	[ ident => '  ', [reformat_all => 0 / 1] ],
	[ encode => 'encoding specification', ]
	[ output_encoding => 'encoding specification', ]
	[ namespaces => \%namespace2alias_mapping, ]
	[ handlers => \%additional_expat_handlers, ]
	# and optionaly parameters passed to XML::Parser::Expat
);

Options passed to XML::Parser::Expat : ProtocolEncoding Namespaces NoExpand Stream_Delimiter ErrorContext ParseParamEnt Base

The "stripspaces" controls the handling of whitespace. Please see the Whitespace handling bellow.

The "style" specifies whether you want to build a parser used to extract stuff from the XML or filter/modify the XML. If you specify style => 'filter' then all tags for which you do not specify a subroutine rule or that occure inside such a tag are copied to the output filehandle passed to the ->filter() or ->filterfile() methods.

The "ident" specifies what character(s) to use to ident the tags when filtering, by default the tags are not formatted in any way. If the "reformat_all" is not set then this affects only the tags that have a rule and their subtags. And in case of subtags only those that were added into the attribute hash by their rules, not those left in the _content array!

The "warnoverwrite" instructs XML::Rules to issue a warning whenever the rule cause a key in a tag's hash to be overwritten by new data produced by the rule of a subtag. This happens eg. if a tag is repeated and its rule doesn't expect it.

The "encode" allows you to ask the module to run all data through Encode::encode( 'encoding_specification', ...) before being passed to the rules. Otherwise all data comes as UTF8.

The "output_encoding" on the other hand specifies in what encoding is the resulting data going to be, the default is again UTF8. This means that if you specify

encode => 'windows-1250',
output_encoding => 'utf8',

and the XML is in ISO-8859-2 (Latin2) then the filter will 1) convert the content and attributes of the tags you are not interested in from Latin2 directly to utf8 and output and 2) convert the content and attributes of the tags you want to process from Latin2 to Windows-1250, let you mangle the data and then convert the results to utf8 for the output.

The encode and output_enconding affects also the $parser-toXML(...)>, if they are different then the data are converted from one encoding to the other.

The handlers allow you to set additional handlers for XML::Parser::Expat->setHandlers. Your Start, End, Char and XMLDecl handlers are evaluated before the ones installed by XML::Rules and may modify the values in @_, but you should be very carefull with that. Consider that experimental and if you do make that work the way you needed, please let me know so that I know what was it good for and can make sure it doesn't break in a new version.

The Rules

The rules option may be either an arrayref or a hashref, the module doesn't care, but if you want to use regexps to specify the groups of tags to be handled by the same rule you should use the array ref. The rules array/hash is made of pairs in form

tagspecification => action

where the tagspecification may be either a name of a tag, a string containing comma or pipe ( "|" ) delimited list of tag names or a string containing a regexp enclosed in // optionaly followed by the regular expression modifiers or a qr// compiled regular expressions. The tag names and tag name lists take precedence to the regexps, the regexps are (in case of arrayrefs only!!!) tested in the order in which they are specified.

These rules are evaluated/executed whenever a tag if fully parsed including all the content and child tags and they may access the content and attributes of the specified tag plus the stuff produced by the rules evaluated for the child tags.

The action may be either

- an undef or empty string = ignore the tag and all its children
- a subroutine reference = the subroutine will be called to handle the tag data&contents
	sub { my ($tagname, $attrHash, $contexArray, $parentDataArray, $parser) = @_; ...}
- one of the built in rules below

Custom rules

The subroutines in the rules specification receive five parameters:

$rule->( $tag_name, \%attrs, \@context, \@parent_data, $parser)

It's OK to destroy the first two parameters, but you should treat the other three as read only or at least treat them with care!

$tag_name = string containing the tag name
\%attrs = hash containing the attributes of the tag plus the _content key
	containing the text content of the tag. If it's not a leaf tag it may
	also contain the data returned by the rules invoked for the child tags.
\@context = an array containing the names of the tags enclosing the current
	one. The parent tag name is the last element of the array. (READONLY!)
\@parent_data = an array containing the hashes with the attributes
	and content read&produced for the enclosing tags so far.
	You may need to access this for example to find out the version
	of the format specified as an attribute of the root tag. You may
	safely add, change or delete attributes in the hashes, but all bets
	are off if you change the number or type of elements of this array!
$parser = the parser object
	you may use $parser->{pad} or $parser->{parameters} to store any data
	you need. The first is never touched by XML::Rules, the second is set to
	the last argument of parse() or filter() methods and reset to undef
	before those methods exit.

The subroutine may decide to handle the data and return nothing or tweak the data as necessary and return just the relevant bits. It may also load more information from elsewhere based on the ids found in the XML and provide it to the rules of the ancestor tags as if it was part of the XML.

The possible return values of the subroutines are:

1) nothing or undef or "" - nothing gets added to the parent tag's hash

2) a single string - if the parent's _content is a string then the one produced by this rule is appended to the parent's _content. If the parent's _content is an array, then the string is push()ed to the array.

3) a single reference - if the parent's _content is a string then it's changed to an array containing the original string and this reference. If the parent's _content is an array, then the string is push()ed to the array.

4) an even numbered list - it's a list of key & value pairs to be added to the parent's hash.

The handling of the attributes may be changed by adding '@', '%', '+', '*' or '.' before the attribute name.

Without any "sigil" the key & value is added to the hash overwriting any previous values.

The values for the keys starting with '@' are push()ed to the arrays referenced by the key name without the @. If there already is an attribute of the same name then the value will be preserved and will become the first element in the array.

The values for the keys starting with '%' have to be either hash or array references. The key&value pairs in the referenced hash or array will be added to the hash referenced by the key. This is nice for rows of tags like this:

<field name="foo" value="12"/>
<field name="bar" value="24"/>

if you specify the rule as

field => sub { '%fields' => [$_[1]->{name} => $_[1]->{value}]}

then the parent tag's has will contain

  fields => {
    foo => 12,
	bar => 24,
  }

The values for the keys starting with '+' are added to the current value, the ones starting with '.' are appended to the current value and the ones starting with '*' multiply the current value.

5) an odd numbered list - the last element is appended or push()ed to the parent's _content, the rest is handled as in the previous case.

Builtin rules

'content' = only the content of the tag is preserved and added to
	the parent tag's hash as an attribute named after the tag. Equivalent to:
	sub { $_[0] => $_[1]->{_content}}
'content trim' = only the content of the tag is preserved, trimmed and added to
	the parent tag's hash as an attribute named after the tag
	sub { s/^\s+//,s/\s+$// for ($_[1]->{_content}); $_[0] => $_[1]->{_content}}
'content array' = only the content of the tag is preserved and pushed
	to the array pointed to by the attribute
	sub { '@' . $_[0] => $_[1]->{_content}}
'as is' = the tag's hash is added to the parent tag's hash
	as an attribute named after the tag
	sub { $_[0] => $_[1]}
'as is trim' = the tag's hash is added to the parent tag's hash
	as an attribute named after the tag, the content is trimmed
	sub { $_[0] => $_[1]}
'as array' = the tag's hash is pushed to the attribute named after the tag
	in the parent tag's hash
	sub { '@'.$_[0] => $_[1]}
'as array trim' = the tag's hash is pushed to the attribute named after the tag
	in the parent tag's hash, the content is trimmed
	sub { '@'.$_[0] => $_[1]}
'no content' = the _content is removed from the tag's hash and the hash
	is added to the parent's hash into the attribute named after the tag
	sub { delete $_[1]->{_content}; $_[0] => $_[1]}
'no content array' = similar to 'no content' except the hash is pushed
	into the array referenced by the attribute
'as array no content' = same as 'no content array'
'pass' = the tag's hash is dissolved into the parent's hash,
	that is all tag's attributes become the parent's attributes.
	The _content is appended to the parent's _content.
	sub { %{$_[1]}}
'pass no content' = the _content is removed and the hash is dissolved
	into the parent's hash.
	sub { delete $_[1]->{_content}; %{$_[1]}}
'pass without content' = same as 'pass no content'
'raw' = the [tagname => attrs] is pushed to the parent tag's _content.
	You would use this style if you wanted to be able to print
	the parent tag as XML preserving the whitespace or other textual content
	sub { [$_[0] => $_[1]]}
'raw extended' = the [tagname => attrs] is pushed to the parent tag's _content
	and the attrs are added to the parent's attribute hash with ":$tagname" as the key
	sub { (':'.$_[0] => $_[1], [$_[0] => $_[1]])};
'raw extended array' = the [tagname => attrs] is pushed to the parent tag's _content
	and the attrs are pushed to the parent's attribute hash with ":$tagname" as the key
	sub { ('@:'.$_[0] => $_[1], [$_[0] => $_[1]])};
'by <attrname>' = uses the value of the specified attribute as the key when adding the
	attribute hash into the parent tag's hash. You can specify more names, in that case
	the first found is used.
	sub {delete($_[1]->{name}) => $_[1]}
'content by <attrname>' = uses the value of the specified attribute as the key when adding the
	tags content into the parent tag's hash. You can specify more names, in that case
	the first found is used.
	sub {$_[1]->{name} => $_[1]->{_content}}
'no content by <attrname>' = uses the value of the specified attribute as the key when adding the
	attribute hash into the parent tag's hash. The content is dropped. You can specify more names,
	in that case the first found is used.
	sub {delete($_[1]->{_content}); delete($_[1]->{name}) => $_[1]}
'==...' = replace the tag by the specified string. That is the string will be added to
	the parent tag's _content
	sub { return '...' }
'=...' = replace the tag contents by the specified string and forget the attributes.
	sub { return $_[0] => '...' }
'' = forget the tag's contents (after processing the rules for subtags)
	sub { return };

I include the unnamed subroutines that would be equivalent to the builtin rule in case you need to add some tests and then behave as if one of the builtins was used.

Builtin rule modifiers

You can add these modifiers to most rules, just add them to the string literal, at the end, separated from the base rule by a space.

no xmlns	= strip the namespace alias from the $_[0] (tag name)
remove(list,of,attributes) = remove all specified attributes (or keys produced by child tag rules) from the tag data
only(list,of,attributes) = filter the hash of attributes and keys+values produced by child tag rules in the tag data
	to only include those specified here. In case you need to include the tag content do not forget to include
	_content in the list!

Not all modifiers make sense for all rules. For example if the rule is 'content', it's pointless to filter the attributes, because the only one used will be the content anyway.

The behaviour of the combination of the 'raw...' rules and the rule modifiers is UNDEFINED!

Different rules for different paths to tags

Since 0.19 it's possible to specify several actions for a tag if you need to do something different based on the path to the tag like this:

tagname => [
	'tag/path' => action,
	'/root/tag/path' => action,
	'/root/*/path' => action,
	qr{^root/ns:[^/]+/par$} => action,
	default_action
],

The path is matched against the list of parent tags joined by slashes.

If you need to use more complex conditions to select the actions you have to use a single subroutine rule and implement the conditions within that subroutine. You have access both to the list of enclosing tags and their attribute hashes (including the data obtained from the rules of the already closed subtags of the enclosing tags.

The Start Rules

Apart from the normal rules that get invoked once the tag is fully parsed, including the contents and child tags, you may want to attach some code to the start tag to (optionaly) skip whole branches of XML or set up attributes and variables. You may set up the start rules either in a separate parameter to the constructor or in the rules=> by prepending the tag name(s) by ^.

These rules are in form

tagspecification => undef / '' / 'skip'	--> skip the element, including child tags
tagspecification => 1 / 'handle'	--> handle the element, may be needed
	if you specify the _default rule.
tagspecification => \&subroutine

The subroutines receive the same parameters as for the "end tag" rules except of course the _content, but their return value is treated differently. If the subroutine returns a false value then the whole branch enclosed by the current tag is skipped, no data are stored and no rules are executed. You may modify the hash referenced by $attr.

You may even tie() the hash referenced by $attr, for example in case you want to store the parsed data in a DBM::Deep. In such case all the data returned by the immediate subtags of this tag will be stored in the DBM::Deep. Make sure you do not overwrite the data by data from another occurance of the same tag if you return $_[1]/$attr from the rule!

YourHugeTag => sub {
	my %temp = %{$_[1]};
	tie %{$_[1]}, 'DBM::Deep', $filename;
	%{$_[1]} = %temp;
	1;
}

Both types of rules are free to store any data they want in $parser->{pad}. This property is NOT emptied after the parsing!

Whitespace handling

There are two options that affect the whitespace handling: stripspaces and normalisespaces. The normalisespaces is a simple flag that controls whether multiple spaces/tabs/newlines are collapsed into a single space or not. The stripspaces is more complex, it's a bit-mask, an ORed combination of the following options:

0 - don't remove whitespace around tags
    (around tags means before the opening tag and after the closing tag, not in the tag's content!)
1 - remove whitespace before tags whose rules did not return any text content
    (the rule specified for the tag caused the data of the tag to be ignored,
	processed them already or added them as attributes to parent's \%attr)
2 - remove whitespace around tags whose rules did not return any text content
3 - remove whitespace around all tags

0 - remove only whitespace-only content
    (that is remove the whitespace around <foo/> in this case "<bar>   <foo/>   </bar>"
	but not this one "<bar>blah   <foo/>  blah</bar>")
4 - remove trailing/leading whitespace
    (remove the whitespace in both cases above)

0 - don't trim content
8 - do trim content
	(That is for "<foo>  blah   </foo>" only pass to the rule {_content => 'blah'})

That is if you have a data oriented XML in which each tag contains either text content or subtags, but not both, you want to use stripspaces => 3 or stripspaces => 3|4. This will not only make sure you don't need to bother with the whitespace-only _content of the tags with subtags, but will also make sure you do not keep on wasting memory while parsing a huge XML and processing the "twigs". Without that option the parent tag of the repeated tag would keep on accumulating unneeded whitespace in its _content.

INSTANCE METHODS

parse

$parser->parse( $string [, $parameters]);
$parser->parse( $IOhandle [, $parameters]);

Parses the XML in the string or reads and parses the XML from the opened IO handle, executes the rules as it encounters the closing tags and returns the resulting structure.

The scalar or reference passed as the second parameter to the parse() method is assigned to $parser->{parameters} for the parsing of the file or string. Once the XML is parsed the key is deleted. This means that the $parser does not retain a reference to the $parameters after the parsing.

parsestring

$parser->parsestring( $string [, $parameters]);

Just an alias to ->parse().

parse_string

$parser->parse_string( $string [, $parameters]);

Just an alias to ->parse().

parsefile

$parser->parsefile( $filename [, $parameters]);

Opens the specified file and parses the XML and executes the rules as it encounters the closing tags and returns the resulting structure.

parse_file

$parser->parse_file( $filename [, $parameters]);

Just an alias to ->parsefile().

parse_chunk

while (my $chunk = read_chunk_of_data()) {
	$parser->parse_chunk($chunk);
}
my $data = $parser->last_chunk();

This method allows you to process the XML in chunks as you receive them. The chunks do not need to be in any way valid ... it's fine if the chunk ends in the middle of a tag or attribute.

If you need to set the $parser->{parameters}, pass it to the first call to parse_chunk() the same way you would to parse(). The first chunk may be empty so if you need to set up the parameters, but read the chunks in a loop or in a callback, you can do this:

$parser->parse_chunk('', {foo => 15, bar => "Hello World!"});
while (my $chunk = read_chunk_of_data()) {
	$parser->parse_chunk($chunk);
}
my $data = $parser->last_chunk();

$parser->parse_chunk('', {foo => 15, bar => "Hello World!"});
$ua->get($url, ':content_cb' => sub { my($data, $response, $protocol) = @_; $parser->parse_chunk($data); return 1 });
my $data = $parser->last_chunk();

The parse_chunk() returns 1 or dies, to get the accumulated data, you need to call last_chunk(). You will want to either agressively trim the data remembered or handle parts of the file using custom rules as the XML is being parsed.

filter

$parser->filter( $string);
$parser->filter( $string, $LexicalOutputIOhandle [, $parameters]);
$parser->filter( $LexicalInputIOhandle, $LexicalOutputIOhandle [, $parameters]);
$parser->filter( $string, \*OutputIOhandle [, $parameters]);
$parser->filter( $LexicalInputIOhandle, \*OutputIOhandle [, $parameters]);
$parser->filter( $string, $OutputFilename [, $parameters]);
$parser->filter( $LexicalInputIOhandle, $OutputFilename [, $parameters]);
$parser->filter( $string, $StringReference [, $parameters]);
$parser->filter( $LexicalInputIOhandle, $StringReference [, $parameters]);

Parses the XML in the string or reads and parses the XML from the opened IO handle, copies the tags that do not have a subroutine rule specified and do not occure under such a tag, executes the specified rules and prints the results to select()ed filehandle, $OutputFilename or $OutputIOhandle or stores them in the scalar referenced by $StringReference using the ->ToXML() method.

The scalar or reference passed as the third parameter to the filter() method is assigned to $parser->{parameters} for the parsing of the file or string. Once the XML is parsed the key is deleted. This means that the $parser does not retain a reference to the $parameters after the parsing.

filterstring

$parser->filterstring( ...);

Just an alias to ->filter().

filter_string

$parser->filter_string( ...);

Just an alias to ->filter().

filterfile

$parser->filterfile( $filename);
$parser->filterfile( $filename, $LexicalOutputIOhandle [, $parameters]);
$parser->filterfile( $filename, \*OutputIOhandle [, $parameters]);
$parser->filterfile( $filename, $OutputFilename [, $parameters]);

Parses the XML in the specified file, copies the tags that do not have a subroutine rule specified and do not occure under such a tag, executes the specified rules and prints the results to select()ed filehandle, $OutputFilename or $OutputIOhandle or stores them in the scalar referenced by $StringReference.

filter_file

Just an alias to ->filterfile().

filter_chunk

while (my $chunk = read_chunk_of_data()) {
	$parser->filter_chunk($chunk);
}
$parser->last_chunk();

This method allows you to process the XML in chunks as you receive them. The chunks do not need to be in any way valid ... it's fine if the chunk ends in the middle of a tag or attribute.

If you need to set the file to store the result to (default is the select()ed filehandle) or set the $parser->{parameters}, pass it to the first call to filter_chunk() the same way you would to filter(). The first chunk may be empty so if you need to set up the parameters, but read the chunks in a loop or in a callback, you can do this:

$parser->filter_chunk('', "the-filtered.xml", {foo => 15, bar => "Hello World!"});
while (my $chunk = read_chunk_of_data()) {
	$parser->filter_chunk($chunk);
}
$parser->last_chunk();

$parser->filter_chunk('', "the_filtered.xml", {foo => 15, bar => "Hello World!"});
$ua->get($url, ':content_cb' => sub { my($data, $response, $protocol) = @_; $parser->filter_chunk($data); return 1 });
filter_chunk$parser->last_chunk();

The filter_chunk() returns 1 or dies, you need to call last_chunk() to sign the end of the data and close the filehandles and clean the parser status. Make sure you do not set a rule for the root tag or other tag containing way too much data. Keep in mind that even if the parser works as a filter, the data for a custom rule must be kept in memory for the rule to execute!

last_chunk

my $data = $parser->last_chunk();
my $data = $parser->last_chunk($the_last_chunk_contents);

Finishes the processing of a XML fed to the parser in chunks. In case of the parser style, returns the accumulated data. In case of the filter style, flushes and closes the output file. You can pass the last piece of the XML to this method or call it without parameters if all the data was passed to parse_chunk()/filter_chunk().

You HAVE to execute this method after call(s) to parse_chunk() or filter_chunk()! Until you do, the parser will refuse to process full documents and expect another call to parse_chunk()/filter_chunk()!

escape_value

$parser->escape_value( $data [, $numericescape])

This method escapes the $data for inclusion in XML, the $numericescape may be 0, 1 or 2 and controls whether to convert 'high' (non ASCII) characters to XML entities.

0 - default: no numeric escaping (OK if you're writing out UTF8)

1 - only characters above 0xFF are escaped (ie: characters in the 0x80-FF range are not escaped), possibly useful with ISO8859-1 output

2 - all characters above 0x7F are escaped (good for plain ASCII output)

You can also specify the default value in the constructor

my $parser = XML::Rules->new(
	...
	NumericEscape => 2,
);

toXML / ToXML

$xml = $parser->toXML( $tagname, \%attrs[, $do_not_close, $ident, $base])

You may use this method to convert the datastructures created by parsing the XML into the XML format. Not all data structures may be printed! I'll add more docs later, for now please do experiment.

The $ident and $base, if defined, turn on and control the pretty-printing. The $ident specifies the character(s) used for one level of identation, the base contains the identation of the current tag. That is if you want to include the data inside of

<data>
	<some>
		<subtag>$here</subtag>
	</some>
</data>

you will call

$parser->toXML( $tagname, \%attrs, 0, "\t", "\t\t\t");

The method does NOT validate that the $ident and $base are whitespace only, but of course if it's not you end up with invalid XML. Newlines are added only before the start tag and (if the tag has only child tags and no content) before the closing tag, but not after the closing tag! Newlines are added even if the $ident is an empty string.

parentsToXML

$xml = $parser->parentsToXML( [$level])

Prints all or only the topmost $level ancestor tags, including the attributes and content (parsed so far), but without the closing tags. You may use this to print the header of the file you are parsing, followed by calling toXML() on a structure you build and then by closeParentsToXML() to close the tags left opened by parentsToXML(). You most likely want to use the style => 'filter' option for the constructor instead.

closeParentsToXML

$xml = $parser->closeParentsToXML( [$level])

Prints the closing tags for all or the topmost $level ancestor tags of the one currently processed.

paths2rules

my $parser = XML::Rules->new(
	rules => paths2rules {
		'/root/subtag/tag' => sub { ...},
		'/root/othertag/tag' => sub {...},
		'tag' => sub{ ... the default code for this tag ...},
		...
	}
);

This helper function converts a hash of "somewhat xpath-like" paths and subs/rules into the format required by the module. Due to backwards compatibility and efficiency I can't directly support paths in the rules and the direct syntax for their specification is a bit awkward. So if you need the paths and not the regexps, you may use this helper instead of:

my $parser = XML::Rules->new(
	rules => {
		'tag' => [
			'/root/subtag' => sub { ...},
			'/root/othertag' => sub {...},
			sub{ ... the default code for this tag ...},
		],
		...
	}
);

return_nothing

Stop parsing the XML, forget any data we already have and return from the $parser->parse(). This is only supposed to be used within rules and may be called both as a method and as an ordinary function (it's not exported).

return_this

Stop parsing the XML, forget any data we already have and return the attributes passed to this subroutine from the $parser->parse(). This is only supposed to be used within rules and may be called both as a method and as an ordinary function (it's not exported).

skip_rest

Stop parsing the XML and return whatever data we already have from the $parser->parse(). The rules for the currently opened tags are evaluated as if the XML contained all the closing tags in the right order.

These three work via raising an exception, the exception is caught within the $parser->parse() and does not propagate outside. It's also safe to raise any other exception within the rules, the exception will be caught as well, the internal state of the $parser object will be cleaned and the exception rethrown.

CLASS METHODS

parse

When called as a class method, parse() accepts the same parameters as new(), instantiates a new parser object and returns a subroutine reference that calls the parse() method on that instance.

my $parser = XML::Rules->new(rules => \%rules);
my $data = $parser->parse($xml);

becomes

my $read_data = XML::Rules->parse(rules => \%rules);
my $data = $read_data->($xml);

sub read_data;
*read_data = XML::Rules->parse(rules => \%rules);
my $data = read_data($xml);

parsestring, parsefile, parse_file, filter, filterstring, filter_string, filterfile, filter_file

All these methods work the same way as parse() when used as a class method. They accept the same parameters as new(), instantiate a new object and return a subroutine reference that calls the respective method.

inferRulesFromExample

Dumper(XML::Rules::inferRulesFromExample( $fileOrXML, $fileOrXML, $fileOrXML, ...)
Dumper(XML::Rules->inferRulesFromExample( $fileOrXML, $fileOrXML, $fileOrXML, ...)
Dumper($parser->inferRulesFromExample( $fileOrXML, $fileOrXML, $fileOrXML, ...)

The subroutine parses the listed files and infers the rules that would produce the minimal, but complete datastructure. It finds out what tags may be repeated, whether they contain text content, attributes etc. You may want to give the subroutine several examples to make sure it knows about all possibilities. You should use this once and store the generated rules in your script or even take this as the basis of a more specific set of rules.

inferRulesFromDTD

Dumper(XML::Rules::inferRulesFromDTD( $DTDorDTDfile, [$enableExtended]))
Dumper(XML::Rules->inferRulesFromDTD( $DTDorDTDfile, [$enableExtended]))
Dumper($parser->inferRulesFromDTD( $DTDorDTDfile, [$enableExtended]))

The subroutine parses the DTD and infers the rules that would produce the minimal, but complete datastructure. It finds out what tags may be repeated, whether they contain text content, attributes etc. You may use this each time you are about to parse the XML or once and store the generated rules in your script or even take this as the basis of a more specific set of rules.

With the second parameter set to a true value, the tags included in a mixed content will use the "raw extended" or "raw extended array" types instead of just "raw". This makes sure the tag data both stay at the right place in the content and are accessible easily from the parent tag's atrribute hash.

This subroutine requires the XML::DTDParser module!

toXML / ToXML

The ToXML() method may be called as a class/static method as well. In that case the default identation is two spaces and the output encoding is utf8.

PROPERTIES

parameters

You can pass a parameter (scalar or reference) to the parse...() or filter...() methods, this parameter is later available to the rules as $parser->{parameters}. The module will never use this parameter for any other purpose so you are free to use it for any purposes provided that you expect it to be reset by each call to parse...() or filter...() first to the passed value and then, after the parsing is complete, to undef.

pad

The $parser->{pad} key is specificaly reserved by the module as a place where the module users can store their data. The module doesn't and will not use this key in any way, doesn't set or reset it under any circumstances. If you need to share some data between the rules and do not want to use the structure built by applying the rules you are free to use this key.

You should refrain from modifying or accessing other properties of the XML::Rules object!

IMPORTS

When used without parameters, the module does not export anything into the caller's namespace. When used with parameters it either infers and prints a set of rules from a DTD or example(s) or instantiates a parser and exports a subroutine calling the specified method similar to the parse() and other methods when called as class methods:

  use XML::Rules inferRules => 'c:\temp\example.xml';
  use XML::Rules inferRules => 'c:\temp\ourOwn.dtd';
  use XML::Rules inferRules => ['c:\temp\example.xml', c:\temp\other.xml'];
  use XML::Rules
    read_data => {
	  method => 'parse',
	  rules => { ... },
	  ...
	};
  use XML::Rules ToXML => {
    method => 'ToXML',
    rules => {}, # the option is required, but may be empty
    ident => '   '
  };
  ...
  my $data => read_data($xml);
  print ToXML(
    rootTag => {
      thing => [
        {Name => "english", child => [7480], otherChild => ['Hello world']},
        {Name => "espanol", child => [7440], otherChild => ['Hola mundo']},
    ]
  });

Please keep in mind that the use statement is executed at "compile time", which means that the variables declared and assigned above the statement do not have the value yet! This is wrong!

my %rules = ( _default => 'content', foo => 'as is', ...};
use XML::Rules
  read_data => {
    method => 'parse',
    rules => \%rules,
    ...
  };

You can use the inferRules form the command line like this:

perl -e "use XML::Rules inferRules => 'c:\temp\example.xml'"

or this:

perl -MXML::Rules=inferRules,c:\temp\example.xml -e 1

or use the included xml2XMLRules.pl and dtd2XMLRules.pl scripts.

Namespace support

By default the module doesn't handle namespaces in any way, it doesn't do anything special with xmlns or xmlns:alias attributes and it doesn't strip or mangle the namespace aliases in tag or attribute names. This means that if you know for sure what namespace aliases will be used you can set up rules for tags including the aliases and unless someone decides to use a different alias or makes use of the default namespace your script will work without turning the namespace support on.

If you do specify any namespace to alias mapping in the constructor it does start processing the namespace stuff. The xmlns and xmlns:alias attributes for the known namespaces are stripped from the datastructures and the aliases are transformed from whatever the XML author decided to use to whatever your namespace mapping specifies. Aliases are also added to all tags that belong to a default namespace.

Assuming the constructor parameters contain

namespaces => {
	'http://my.namespaces.com/foo' => 'foo',
	'http://my.namespaces.com/bar' => 'bar',
}

and the XML looks like this:

<root>
	<Foo xmlns="http://my.namespaces.com/foo">
		<subFoo>Hello world</subfoo>
	</Foo>
	<other xmlns:b="http://my.namespaces.com/bar">
		<b:pub>
			<b:name>NaRuzku</b:name>
			<b:address>at any crossroads</b:address>
			<b:desc>Fakt <b>desnej</b> pajzl.</b:desc>
		</b:pub>
	</other>
</root>

then the rules wil be called as if the XML looked like this while the namespace support is turned off:

<root>
	<foo:Foo>
		<foo:subFoo>Hello world</foo:subfoo>
	</foo:Foo>
	<other>
		<bar:pub>
			<bar:name>NaRuzku</bar:name>
			<bar:address>at any crossroads</bar:address>
			<bar:desc>Fakt <b>desnej</b> pajzl.</bar:desc>
		</bar:pub>
	</other>
</root>

This means that the namespace handling will normalize the aliases used so that you can use them in the rules.

It is possible to specify an empty alias, so eg. in case you are processing a SOAP XML and know the tags defined by SOAP do not colide with the tags in the enclosed XML you may simplify the parsing by removing all namespace aliases.

You can control the behaviour with respect to the namespaces that you did not include in your mapping by setting the "alias" for the special pseudonamespace '*'. The possible values of the "alias"are: "warn" (default), "keep", "strip", "" and "die".

warn: whenever an unknown namespace is encountered, XML::Rules prints a warning. The xmlns:XX attributes and the XX: aliases are retained for these namespaces. If the alias clashes with one specified by your mapping it will be changed in all places, the xmlns="..." referencing an unexpected namespace are changed to xmlns:nsN and the alias is added to the tag names included.

keep: this works just like the "warn" except for the warning.

strip: all attributes and tags in the unknown namespaces are stripped. If a tag in such a namespace contains a tag from a known namespace, then the child tag is retained.

"": all the xmlns attributes and the aliases for the unexected namespaces are removed, the tags and normal attributes are retained without any alias.

die: as soon as any unexpected namespace is encountered, XML::Rules croak()s.

HOW TO USE

You may view the module either as a XML::Simple on steriods and use it to build a data structure similar to the one produced by XML::Simple with the added benefit of being able to specify what tags or attributes to ignore, when to take just the content, what to store as an array etc.

You could also view it as yet another event based XML parser that differs from all the others only in one thing. It stores the data for you so that you do not have to use globals or closures and wonder where to attach the snippet of data you just received onto the structure you are building.

You can use it in a way similar to XML::Twig with simplify(): specify the rules to transform the lower level tags into a XML::Simple like (simplify()ed) structure and then handle the structure in the rule for the tag(s) you'd specify in XML::Twig's twig_roots.

Unrelated tricks

If you need to parse a XML file without the root tag (something that each and any sane person would allow, but the XML comitee did not), you can parse

<!DOCTYPE doc [<!ENTITY real_doc SYSTEM "$the_file_name">]><doc>&real_doc;</doc>

instead.

AUTHOR

Jan Krynicky, <Jenda at CPAN.org>

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-xml-rules at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=XML-Rules. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc XML::Rules

You can also look for information at:

AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation

http://annocpan.org/dist/XML-Rules
CPAN Ratings

http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/XML-Rules
RT: CPAN's request tracker

http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=XML-Rules
Search CPAN

http://search.cpan.org/dist/XML-Rules
PerlMonks

Please see http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=581313 or http://www.perlmonks.org/?node=XML::Rules for discussion.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The escape_value() method is taken with minor changes from XML::Simple.

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

To install XML::Rules, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.

cpanm

cpanm XML::Rules

CPAN shell

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install XML::Rules

For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.

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NAME

VERSION

SYNOPSIS

INTRODUCTION

CONSTRUCTOR

The Rules

Custom rules

Builtin rules

Builtin rule modifiers

Different rules for different paths to tags

The Start Rules

Whitespace handling

INSTANCE METHODS

parse

parsestring

parse_string

parsefile

parse_file

parse_chunk

filter

filterstring

filter_string

filterfile

filter_file

filter_chunk

last_chunk

escape_value

toXML / ToXML

parentsToXML

closeParentsToXML

paths2rules

return_nothing

return_this

skip_rest

CLASS METHODS

parse

parsestring, parsefile, parse_file, filter, filterstring, filter_string, filterfile, filter_file

inferRulesFromExample

inferRulesFromDTD

toXML / ToXML

PROPERTIES

parameters

pad

IMPORTS

Namespace support

HOW TO USE

Unrelated tricks

AUTHOR

BUGS

SUPPORT

SEE ALSO

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Module Install Instructions