xmlbuilder2

An XML builder for node.js.

Installation:

npm install xmlbuilder2

Usage:

xmlbuilder2 is a wrapper around DOM nodes which adds chainable functions to make it easier to create and work with XML documents. For example the following XML document:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root att="val">
  <foo>
    <bar>foobar</bar>
  </foo>
  <baz/>
</root>

can be created with the following function chain:

const { create } = require('xmlbuilder2');

const root = create({ version: '1.0' })
  .ele('root', { att: 'val' })
    .ele('foo')
      .ele('bar').txt('foobar').up()
    .up()
    .ele('baz').up()
  .up();

// convert the XML tree to string
const xml = root.end({ prettyPrint: true });
console.log(xml);

The same XML document can be created by converting a JS object into XML nodes:

const { create } = require('xmlbuilder2');

const obj = {
  root: {
    '@att': 'val',
    foo: {
      bar: 'foobar'
    },
    baz: {}
  }
};

const doc = create(obj);
const xml = doc.end({ prettyPrint: true });
console.log(xml);

xmlbuilder2 can also parse and serialize XML documents from different formats:

const { create } = require('xmlbuilder2');

const xmlStr = '<root att="val"><foo><bar>foobar</bar></foo></root>';
const doc = create(xmlStr);

// append a 'baz' element to the root node of the document
doc.root().ele('baz');

const xml = doc.end({ prettyPrint: true });
console.log(xml);

which would output the same document string at the top of this page.

Or you could return a JS object by changing the format argument to 'object':

const obj = doc.end({ format: 'object' });
console.log(obj);

{
  root: {
    '@att': 'val',
    foo: {
      bar: 'foobar'
    },
    baz: {}
  }
}

You can convert between formats in one go with the convert function:

const { convert } = require('xmlbuilder2');

const xmlStr = '<root att="val"><foo><bar>foobar</bar></foo></root>';
const obj = convert(xmlStr, { format: "object" });

console.log(obj);

{
  root: {
    '@att': 'val',
    foo: {
      bar: 'foobar'
    }
  }
}

If you need to do some processing:

const { create } = require('xmlbuilder2');

const root = create().ele('squares');
root.com('f(x) = x^2');
for(let i = 1; i <= 5; i++)
{
  const item = root.ele('data');
  item.att('x', i);
  item.att('y', i * i);
}

const xml = root.end({ prettyPrint: true });
console.log(xml);

This will result in:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<squares>
  <!-- f(x) = x^2 -->
  <data x="1" y="1"/>
  <data x="2" y="4"/>
  <data x="3" y="9"/>
  <data x="4" y="16"/>
  <data x="5" y="25"/>
</squares>

Usage in the browser:

You can build the minified production bundle (lib/xmlbuilder2.min.js) after cloning the repository and issuing npx webpack in your terminal. The bundle is also in the npm package, so you can also use a public npm CDN like jsDelivr or unpkg:

<!-- latest version from jsDelivr -->
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/xmlbuilder2/lib/xmlbuilder2.min.js"></script>
<!-- latest version from unpkg -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/xmlbuilder2/lib/xmlbuilder2.min.js"></script>

Documentation:

See: https://oozcitak.github.io/xmlbuilder2/

Donations:

Please consider becoming a backer or sponsor to help support development.