force elements in XML::Smart

Errto has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I was looking for a quick way to spit out XML from a data structure and came across XML::Smart. Nifty module. But I'm running into a stumbling block, which is that it is giving me attributes where I would like separate elements. My code is like this:

my $xml = XML::Smart->new;
$xml->{Body} = { Foo => 'Bar' };
$xml->save("test.xml");
[download]

and it is producing this output:

<Body Foo="Bar"/>
[download]

whereas I would like it to produce this output:

<Body><Foo>Bar</Foo></Body>
[download]

and was hoping there was a straightforward way to do so. Cheers,

Comment on force elements in XML::Smart Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: force elements in XML::Smart by GrandFather (Saint) on Apr 24, 2007 at 00:15 UTC
XML::Smart seems just a bit too clever at times. You may like XML::Maker a bit better: `use strict; use warnings; use XML::Maker; my $xml = XML::Maker->new ('Body'); my $foo = $xml->subtag ('Foo'); $foo->subtag ('Bar'); print $xml->make ();` [download] Prints: `<Body><Foo>Bar</Foo></Body>` [download] or an interesting alternative is to use XML::Spew: `use strict; use warnings; package My::Spew; use XML::Spew; use base 'XML::Spew'; __PACKAGE__->_tags(qw/Body Foo/); package main; my $spew = My::Spew->_new (); print $spew->Body ($spew->Foo ('Bar'));` [download] which generates the same output. DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: force elements in XML::Smart by almut (Canon) on Apr 23, 2007 at 23:47 UTC
According to the docs, the following should force it to be a node: `$xml->{Body} = { Foo => 'Bar' }; $xml->{Body}{Foo}->set_node(1);` [download] Otherwise, there are heuristics like there being newlines (`\n`) in the content, that determine whether a node or an attribute is being created... Cheers.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: force elements in XML::Smart by gube (Parson) on Apr 24, 2007 at 03:39 UTC
Hi You can use XML::Simple module it will be simple. To parse xml or to create xml you can simply use XML::Simple. `use strict; use warnings; use XML::Simple; use Data::Dumper; my $xml_input = qq{<Body><Foo>Bar</Foo></Body>}; my $xml_simple = XML::Simple->new(KeepRoot => 1, KeyAttr => 1, ForceAr +ray => 1); my $result = $xml_simple->XMLin($xml_input); print "\nParsed xml with output as reference..", Dumper($result); my $result_xml = $xml_simple->XMLout($result); print "\nConstructed xml using reference..", $result_xml;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]


Your skill will accomplish what the force of many cannot
	PerlMonks