Pretty-printing output from javax.xml.transform.Transformer with only standard java api (Indentation and Doctype positioning)

Question

Using the following simple code:

package test;

import java.io.*;
import javax.xml.transform.*;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.*;

public class TestOutput         


        

Answer 1

A little util class as an example...

import org.apache.xml.serialize.XMLSerializer;

public class XmlUtil {

public static Document file2Document(File file) throws Exception {
    if (file == null || !file.exists()) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("File must exist![" + file == null ? "NULL"
                : ("Could not be found: " + file.getAbsolutePath()) + "]");
    }
    DocumentBuilderFactory dbFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
    dbFactory.setNamespaceAware(true);
    return dbFactory.newDocumentBuilder().parse(new FileInputStream(file));
}

public static Document string2Document(String xml) throws Exception {
    InputSource src = new InputSource(new StringReader(xml));
    DocumentBuilderFactory dbFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
    dbFactory.setNamespaceAware(true);
    return dbFactory.newDocumentBuilder().parse(src);
}

public static OutputFormat getPrettyPrintFormat() {
    OutputFormat format = new OutputFormat();
    format.setLineWidth(120);
    format.setIndenting(true);
    format.setIndent(2);
    format.setEncoding("UTF-8");
    return format;
}

public static String document2String(Document doc, OutputFormat format) throws Exception {
    StringWriter stringOut = new StringWriter();
    XMLSerializer serial = new XMLSerializer(stringOut, format);
    serial.serialize(doc);
    return stringOut.toString();
}

public static String document2String(Document doc) throws Exception {
    return XmlUtil.document2String(doc, XmlUtil.getPrettyPrintFormat());
}

public static void document2File(Document doc, File file) throws Exception {
    XmlUtil.document2String(doc, XmlUtil.getPrettyPrintFormat());
}

public static void document2File(Document doc, File file, OutputFormat format) throws Exception {
    XMLSerializer serializer = new XMLSerializer(new FileOutputStream(file), format);
    serializer.serialize(doc);
}
}

XMLserializer is provided by xercesImpl from the Apache Foundation. Here is the maven dependency:

<dependency>
    <groupId>xerces</groupId>
    <artifactId>xercesImpl</artifactId>
    <version>2.11.0</version>
</dependency>

You can find the dependency for your favourite build tool here: http://mvnrepository.com/artifact/xerces/xercesImpl/2.11.0.

Answer 2

The missing part is the amount to indent. You can set the indentation and indent amount as follow:

transformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.INDENT, "yes");
transformer.setOutputProperty("{http://xml.apache.org/xslt}indent-amount", "2");
transformer.transform(xmlInput, xmlOutput);

Answer 3

To make the output a valid XML document, NO. A valid XML document must start with a processing instruction. See the XML specification http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-prolog-dtd for more details.

Answer 4

You could probably prettify everything with an XSLT file. Google throws up a few results, but I can't comment on their correctness.