boost::property_tree XML pretty printing

Question

I'm using boost::property_tree to read and write XML configuration files in my application. But when I write the file the output looks kind of ugly with lots of empty lines in the file. The problem is that it's supposed to be edited by humans too so I'd like to get a better output.

As an example I wrote a small test program :

#include <boost/property_tree/ptree.hpp>
#include <boost/property_tree/xml_parser.hpp>

int main( void )
{
    using boost::property_tree::ptree;
    ptree pt;

    // reading file.xml
    read_xml("file.xml", pt);

    // writing the unchanged ptree in file2.xml
    boost::property_tree::xml_writer_settings<char> settings('\t', 1);
    write_xml("file2.xml", pt, std::locale(), settings);

    return 0;
}

file.xml contains:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<config>
    <net>
        <listenPort>10420</listenPort>
    </net>
</config>

after running the program file2.xml contains:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<config>



    <net>



        <listenPort>10420</listenPort>
    </net>
</config>

Is there a way to have a better output, other than going manually through the output and deleting empty lines?

Answer 1

The solution was to add the trim_whitespace flag to the call to read_xml:

#include <boost/property_tree/ptree.hpp>
#include <boost/property_tree/xml_parser.hpp>

int main( void )
{
    // Create an empty property tree object
    using boost::property_tree::ptree;
    ptree pt;

    // reading file.xml
    read_xml("file.xml", pt, boost::property_tree::xml_parser::trim_whitespace );

    // writing the unchanged ptree in file2.xml
    boost::property_tree::xml_writer_settings<char> settings('\t', 1);
    write_xml("file2.xml", pt, std::locale(), settings);

    return 0;
}

The flag is documented here but the current maintainer of the library (Sebastien Redl) was kind enough to answer and point me to it.

Answer 2

This question is quite old, but I investigated your problem again, lately, because it got a lot worse now that property_tree translates newlines to


    

In my opinion this is a bug, because elements, which contains only whitespace - newlines, spaces and tabs, are treated as text elements. trim_whitespace is only a bandaid and normalizes ALL whitespace in the property_tree.

I reported the bug over here and also attached a .diff to fix this behaviour in Boost 1.59 in case trim_whitespace is not used: https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/11600

Answer 3

For those trying:

boost::property_tree::xml_writer_settings<char> settings('\t', 1);

Compiling with boost-1.60.0 in VisualStudio 2013 you may get:

vmtknetworktest.cpp(259) : see reference to class template instantiation 'boost::property_tree::xml_parser::xml_writer_settings<char>' being compiled
install\include\boost-1_60\boost/property_tree/detail/xml_parser_writer_settings.hpp(38): error C2039: 'value_type' : is not a member of '`global namespace''
install\include\boost-1_60\boost/property_tree/detail/xml_parser_writer_settings.hpp(38): error C2146: syntax error : missing ';' before identifier 'Ch'
install\include\boost-1_60\boost/property_tree/detail/xml_parser_writer_settings.hpp(38): error C4430: missing type specifier - int assumed. Note: C++ does not support default-int
install\include\boost-1_60\boost/property_tree/detail/xml_parser_writer_settings.hpp(40): error C2061: syntax error : identifier 'Ch'
install\include\boost-1_60\boost/property_tree/detail/xml_parser_writer_settings.hpp(49): error C2146: syntax error : missing ';' before identifier 'indent_char'
install\include\boost-1_60\boost/property_tree/detail/xml_parser_writer_settings.hpp(49): error C4430: missing type specifier - int assumed. Note: C++ does not support default-int
install\include\boost-1_60\boost/property_tree/detail/xml_parser_writer_settings.hpp(50): error C2825: 'Str': must be a class or namespace when followed by '::'
install\include\boost-1_60\boost/property_tree/detail/xml_parser_writer_settings.hpp(50): error C2039: 'size_type' : is not a member of '`global namespace''
install\include\boost-1_60\boost/property_tree/detail/xml_parser_writer_settings.hpp(50): error C2146: syntax error : missing ';' before identifier 'indent_count'
install\include\boost-1_60\boost/property_tree/detail/xml_parser_writer_settings.hpp(50): error C4430: missing type specifier - int assumed. Note: C++ does not support default-int
vmtknetworktest.cpp(259): error C2661: 'boost::property_tree::xml_parser::xml_writer_settings<char>::xml_writer_settings' : no overloaded function takes 3 arguments

Then end up here:

https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/10272

Solution to found to work is to use std::string in template.

pt::write_xml(file_name, params, std::locale(), pt::xml_writer_make_settings< std::string >(' ', 4));

as described here:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/35043551/7170333