PHP “pretty print” HTML (not Tidy)

Question

I\'m using the DOM extension in PHP to build some HTML documents, and I want the output to be formatted nicely (with new lines and indentation) so that it\'s readable, howev

Answer 1

you're right, there seems to be no indentation for HTML (others are also confused). XML works, even with loaded code.

preserveWhiteSpace = false;
    $dom->loadHTML($buffer);
    $dom->formatOutput = true;
    return($dom->saveHTML());
}

// start output buffering, using our nice
// callback function to format the output.
ob_start("tidyHTML");

?>

    
    
bar foo
It's like comparing apples to oranges.

result:

bar foo
It's like comparing apples to oranges.

the same with saveXML() ...

  
    
    
  
  
    
bar foo
    
It's like comparing apples to oranges.
  

probably forgot to set preserveWhiteSpace=false before loadHTML?

disclaimer: i stole most of the demo code from tyson clugg/php manual comments. lazy me.

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UPDATE: i now remember some years ago i tried the same thing and ran into the same problem. i fixed this by applying a dirty workaround (wasn't performance critical): i just somehow converted around between SimpleXML and DOM until the problem vanished. i suppose the conversion got rid of those nodes. maybe load with dom, import with simplexml_import_dom, then output the string, parse this with DOM again and then printed it pretty. as far as i remember this worked (but it was really slow).