StAX XML formatting in Java

Question

Is it possible using StAX (specifically woodstox) to format the output xml with newlines and tabs, i.e. in the form:

  
   someData
  &         


        

Answer 1

There is com.sun.xml.txw2.output.IndentingXMLStreamWriter

XMLOutputFactory xmlof = XMLOutputFactory.newInstance();
XMLStreamWriter writer = new IndentingXMLStreamWriter(xmlof.createXMLStreamWriter(out));

Answer 2

Not sure about stax, but there was a recent discussion about pretty printing xml here

pretty print xml from java

this was my attempt at a solution

How to pretty print XML from Java?

using the org.dom4j.io.OutputFormat.createPrettyPrint() method

Answer 3

If you're using the iterating method (XMLEventReader), can't you just attach a new line '\n' character to the relevant XMLEvents when writing to your XML file?

Answer 4

Using the JDK Transformer:

public String transform(String xml) throws XMLStreamException, TransformerException
{
    Transformer t = TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer();
    t.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.INDENT, "yes");
    t.setOutputProperty("{http://xml.apache.org/xslt}indent-amount", "2");
    Writer out = new StringWriter();
    t.transform(new StreamSource(new StringReader(xml)), new StreamResult(out));
    return out.toString();
}