How to parse an XML file with RapidXml

Question

I have to parse an XML file in C++. I was researching and found the RapidXml library for this.

I have doubts about doc.parse<0>(xml).

Can

Answer 1

We usually read the XML from the disk into a std::string, then make a safe copy of it into a std::vector as demonstrated below:

string input_xml;
string line;
ifstream in("demo.xml");

// read file into input_xml
while(getline(in,line))
    input_xml += line;

// make a safe-to-modify copy of input_xml
// (you should never modify the contents of an std::string directly)
vector xml_copy(input_xml.begin(), input_xml.end());
xml_copy.push_back('\0');

// only use xml_copy from here on!
xml_document<> doc;
// we are choosing to parse the XML declaration
// parse_no_data_nodes prevents RapidXML from using the somewhat surprising
// behavior of having both values and data nodes, and having data nodes take
// precedence over values when printing
// >>> note that this will skip parsing of CDATA nodes <<<
doc.parse(&xml_copy[0]);

For a complete source code check:

Read a line from xml file using C++