88

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?

Improve this question
1
  • 1
    About your utf-8 issue, just add it to the object as a second parameter like $doc = new DOMDocument("1.0", "UTF-8"); Commented Aug 23, 2016 at 17:59

8 Answers 8

Reset to default
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]);
Improve this answer
Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

3 Comments

Related: Debug a DOMDocument Object in PHP for a more controlled form of XML printing.
Related: Converting indentation with preg_replace (no callback)
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.
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

Improve this answer

2 Comments

@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.
additionally, you can use ` $domxml->encoding = "UTF-8"` after loadXML before save.
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);
Improve this answer

1 Comment

could you also add an explanation?
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();
Improve this answer

Comments

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
Improve this answer

2 Comments

upvoted, because this answer contains a complete example!
Great answer, this was the only option that fully worked in my circumstance (working with RSS XML).
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.

See also xmlEncoding and encoding.

Improve this answer

4 Comments

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.
@hakre Why preserveWhiteSpace = TRUE works fine with XML, but doesn't work with HTML?
To let the browser format it, a proper MIME type has to be set. For example whit: header('Content-type: text/xml');
I actually neeeded to see the whitespaces, so this was the correct answer for me
2

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.

Improve this answer

Comments

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))); }
Improve this answer

Comments

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.