CODEWITHSUNDEEP
asp.net-mvcxml
Joe
Joe

Reputation: 286

How to Display Formatted XML

I have xml data that I am returning to my view. I am putting it in a textarea, but this displays it unformatted. How can I format the xml for display in my view?

I will be displaying the xml in only part of the page, so I can't let IE display it. I want it to be in standard xml indented format.

Upvotes: 8

Views: 16397

Answers (8)

p.campbell
p.campbell

Reputation: 100657

Declare yourself an asp:Literal within a <pre> element.

<pre><asp:Literal ID="foo" runat="server" /></pre>

Assign the xml string to the literal:

foo.Text = CreatedIndentedXmlString("<foo><bar>6</bar></foo>");

public string CreatedIndentedXmlString(string inXml)
{
    if (inXml.Length == 0) return "";
    XElement x = XElement.Parse(inXml);
    return Server.HtmlEncode(x.ToString());
}

Upvotes: 4

Richard Szalay
Richard Szalay

Reputation: 84824

If, by "formatting", you mean indented then you can load it into XmlDocument and write it into an XmlWriter initialized with an XmlWriterSettings that has Indent set to true.

private string FormatXml(string input)
{
    XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
    doc.LoadXml(input);

    using (StringWriter buffer = new StringWriter())
    {
        XmlWriterSettings settings = new XmlWriterSettings();
        settings.Indent = true;

        using (XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(buffer, settings))
        {
            doc.WriteTo( writer );

            writer.Flush();
        }

        buffer.Flush();

        return buffer.ToString();
    }
}

Upvotes: 7

brianary
brianary

Reputation: 9332

Here's what I like to do:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" standalone="yes" omit-xml-declaration="yes" 
    encoding="utf-8" media-type="text/html" indent="no" cdata-section-elements="" 
    doctype-public="-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" 
    doctype-system="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"/>

<xsl:template match="/">
    <html><head><title>XML Data</title>
    <style type="text/css">th {text-align:right}</style></head>
    <body><table><xsl:apply-templates/></table></body></html>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="*[text() and *]">
    <xsl:apply-templates select="@*"/>
    <tr><th><xsl:value-of select="name()"/></th>
        <td>
            <xsl:for-each select="*|text()">
                <xsl:choose>
                    <xsl:when test="name()">
                        <xsl:apply-templates mode="inline" select="."/>
                    </xsl:when>
                    <xsl:otherwise>
                        <xsl:value-of select="."/>
                    </xsl:otherwise>
                </xsl:choose>
            </xsl:for-each>
        </td>
    </tr>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="*" mode="inline">
    <xsl:text> [ </xsl:text>
    <strong><xsl:value-of select="name()"/></strong>
    <xsl:if test="@*">
        <xsl:text> ( </xsl:text>
        <xsl:for-each select="@*"><xsl:if test="position() &gt; 1" xml:space="preserve"> </xsl:if>
            <em><xsl:value-of select="name()"/></em> = <xsl:value-of select="."/>
        </xsl:for-each>
        <xsl:text> )</xsl:text>
    </xsl:if>
    <xsl:text>: </xsl:text>
    <xsl:apply-templates mode="inline"/>
    <xsl:text> ] </xsl:text>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="*[text() and not(*)]">
    <xsl:apply-templates select="@*"/>
    <tr><th><xsl:value-of select="name()"/></th>
        <td><xsl:apply-templates/></td></tr> 
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="*[(* or @*) and not(text())]">
    <tr><td colspan="2"><fieldset><legend><xsl:value-of select="name()"/></legend>
        <table><xsl:apply-templates select="@*"/><xsl:apply-templates/></table></fieldset></td></tr>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="*[not(*|@*|text())]">
    <tr><td colspan="2"><xsl:value-of select="name()"/></td></tr>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="@*">
    <tr><th><em><xsl:value-of select="name()"/></em></th>
        <td><xsl:value-of select="."/></td></tr>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Upvotes: 3

John Saunders
John Saunders

Reputation: 161831

Simply load the XML into an XElement, then use XElement.ToString().

Upvotes: 6

dkackman
dkackman

Reputation: 15579

If you are looking for a simple Xml structure the default IE view (with the collapsible nodes etc).

The IE transform is here: res://msxml.dll/DEFAULTSS.xsl.

An xslt version is available online at places like this. I use this in places where I don't have a more human friednly transform but still want to see the Xml in a formatted manner.

Upvotes: 1

Sergey Mirvoda
Sergey Mirvoda

Reputation: 3239

You can use java script code colorizer. as for formatting, xml writer (as I know) can output well structured document, it can be turned off by default to reduce weight.

Upvotes: 1

No Refunds No Returns
No Refunds No Returns

Reputation: 8356

how about replacing "<" with &lt; and then stuffing in a <pre> block. User won't be able to edit it but surely you have better tools than a textarea for that anyway, right?

Upvotes: 2

Jeff Yates
Jeff Yates

Reputation: 62407

You can use an XSLT to convert your XML into XHTML and then display that.

Upvotes: 4

Related Questions