how to create an R data frame from a xml file

Question

I have a XML Document file. The part of the file looks like this:

-  
     COUNTY  
     County a         


        

Answer 1

Assuming this is the correct taxlots.shp.xml file:

<attr>  
     <attrlabl>COUNTY</attrlabl>  
     <attrdef>County abbreviation</attrdef>  
     <attrtype>Text</attrtype>  
     <attwidth>1</attwidth>  
     <atnumdec>0</atnumdec>  
    <attrdomv>  
        <edom>  
            <edomv>C</edomv>  
            <edomvd>Clackamas County</edomvd>  
            <edomvds/>  
         </edom>  
        <edom>  
            <edomv>M</edomv>  
            <edomvd>Multnomah County</edomvd>  
            <edomvds/>  
         </edom>  
        <edom>  
            <edomv>W</edomv>  
            <edomvd>Washington County</edomvd>  
            <edomvds/>  
         </edom>  
     </attrdomv>  
 </attr>

You were almost there:

doc <- xmlParse("taxlots.shp.xml")
xmlToDataFrame(nodes=getNodeSet(doc1,"//attr"))[c("attrlabl","attrdef","attrtype","attrdomv")]
  attrlabl             attrdef attrtype                                             attrdomv
1   COUNTY County abbreviation     Text CClackamas CountyMMultnomah CountyWWashington County

But the last field has not the format you wanted. To do so, require some additional steps:

step1 <- xmlToDataFrame(nodes=getNodeSet(doc1,"//attrdomv/edom"))
step1
  edomv            edomvd edomvds
1     C  Clackamas County        
2     M  Multnomah County        
3     W Washington County  

step2 <- paste(paste(step1$edomv, step1$edomvd, sep=" "), collapse="; ")
step2
[1] "C Clackamas County; M Multnomah County; W Washington County"

cbind(xmlToDataFrame(nodes= getNodeSet(doc1, "//attr"))[c("attrlabl", "attrdef", "attrtype")],
      attrdomv= step2)
  attrlabl             attrdef attrtype                                                      attrdomv
1   COUNTY County abbreviation     Text C Clackamas County; M Multnomah County; W Washington County