Creating an XML document with a namespaced root element with Nokogiri builder

Question

I'm implementing an exporter for an XML data format that requires namespaces. I'm using the Nokogiri XML Builder (version 1.4.0) to do this.

However, I can't get Nokogiri to create a root node with a namespace.

This works:

Nokogiri::XML::Builder.new { |xml| xml.root('xmlns:foobar' => 'my-ns-url') }.to_xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root xmlns:foobar="my-ns-url"/>

As does this:

Nokogiri::XML::Builder.new do |xml| 
  xml.root('xmlns:foobar' => 'my-ns-url') { xml['foobar'].child }
end.to_xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root xmlns:foobar="my-ns-url">
  <foobar:child/>
</root>

However, I need something like <foo:root> and this doesn't work:

Nokogiri::XML::Builder.new { |xml| xml['foobar'].root('xmlns:foobar' => 'my-ns-url') }.to_xml

NoMethodError: undefined method `namespace_definitions' for #<Nokogiri::XML::Document:0x11bfef8 name="document">

Namespaces have to be defined before use, apparently, so there's no way to add one to the root node.

I found a question about this on the Nokogiri mailing list, but it had no replies. Anyone have a solution?

Answer 1

require 'rubygems'
require 'nokogiri'

puts Nokogiri::XML::Builder.new { |xml| 
  xml.root("xmlns:foo"=>"url") {
    xml.parent.namespace = xml.parent.namespace_definitions.find{|ns|ns.prefix=="foo"}
    xml['foo'].child
  }
}.to_xml

You cannot use xml['foo'] before the namespace is defined, ie before you pass it as an argument to the root node. Thus, the code above add the namespace after-the-fact to the root node.

Answer 2

Two years later, I found a cleaner way to do this by using Nokogiri::XML::Builder's document reference to retrieve the root node and add the namespace(s) to that. Like the previous solution, it requires the root node to exist before the namespaces can be added to it.

I've changed the <root> element to <rootElement> so this is more clear:

builder = Nokogiri::XML::Builder.new do |xml| 
  xml.rootElement do
    # create a namespace and save it for later
    ns = xml.doc.root.add_namespace_definition('foo', 'my-ns-url')
    # you can also create multiple name spaces
    xml.doc.root.add_namespace_definition('bar', 'http://example.com/bar')

    # assign the saved namespace to rootElement
    xml.doc.root.namespace = ns

    xml['foo'].child
    xml['bar'].child
  end
end

Now, builder.to_xml will return:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<foo:rootElement xmlns:foo="my-ns-url" xmlns:bar="http://example.com/bar">
  <foo:child/>
  <bar:child/>
</foo:rootElement>

I like this better because you don't have to search for the name space, and it's easier to add multiple namespaces.

Answer 3

Three years after Luke's answer, it's gotten yet simpler. You can now use the namespace "before" it's defined. This code:

require 'nokogiri'

NAMESPACES = { 'xmlns:foo' => 'bar', 'xmlns:baz' => 'bat' }

builder = Nokogiri::XML::Builder.new { |xml|
  xml['foo'].RootElement(NAMESPACES) {
    xml['baz'].FirstChild
  }
}

puts builder.to_xml

Outputs this XML:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<foo:RootElement xmlns:foo="bar" xmlns:baz="bat">
  <baz:FirstChild/>
</foo:RootElement>