xml parsing using boost

Question

I am parsing below xml file using BOOST library-

        15
        8

        

Answer 1

Boost Serialization is not an XML library.

Boost Archive xml_[io]archive isn't an XML library either.

Heck, not even Boost Property Tree is an XML library.

In short: Boost Does Not Contain An XML Library.

---

Slightly longer: you can use Boost Property Tree to parse your XML. It's using a derivative of RapidXML under the hood and you can read/write fairly generic XML documents using Boost Property Tree.

In reality, the Property Tree interface is quite specific and often leads to confusion. There's not a lot of control.

If you care about your XML support (namespaces? whitespace? ordering? PCDATA? Processing instructions? XPath? Encodings? ...) please consider using an XML library (What XML parser should I use in C++?)

Bonus: sample with Boost Property Tree

Here's how to do it with Boost Property Tree

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#include <iostream>
#include <boost/property_tree/ptree.hpp>
#include <boost/property_tree/xml_parser.hpp>

typedef struct date { 
    unsigned int m_day;
    unsigned int m_month;
    unsigned int m_year;
    date( int d=1,  int m=1,  int y=2000) : m_day(d), m_month(m), m_year(y) {}

    friend std::ostream& operator << (std::ostream& out, date& d) {
        return out << "day: " << d.m_day << " month: " << d.m_month << " year: " << d.m_year;
    }

    void load(boost::property_tree::ptree const& pt)
    {
        m_day = pt.get("da.m_day", 1);
        m_month = pt.get("da.m_month", 1);
        m_year = pt.get("da.m_year", 2000);
    }
} date;

#include <sstream>

int main() {
    std::istringstream iss("<da>\n"
                "<m_day Type=\"int\">15</m_day>\n"
                "<m_month Type=\"int\">8</m_month>\n"
                "<m_year Type=\"int\">1947</m_year>\n"
                "</da>\n");

    boost::property_tree::ptree pt;
    read_xml(iss, pt);

    date d;
    d.load(pt);

    std::cout << d << "\n";
}

Prints

day: 15 month: 8 year: 1947

Answer 2

Boost Serialization does not support writing XML attributes, and apparently doesn't support reading them either, or even ignoring them. One of the authors wrote about this here: http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/serialization-How-to-serialize-as-an-XML-attribute-td2557918.html

You could pre-process the XML before loading it, using another XML library like Expat or whatever.