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      1 <?xml version="1.0"?>
      2 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
      3     "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd" [
      4 <!ENTITY KEYWORD SYSTEM "includekeyword.c">
      5 <!ENTITY XPATH SYSTEM "includexpath.c">
      6 <!ENTITY STORY SYSTEM "includestory.xml">
      7 <!ENTITY ADDKEYWORD SYSTEM "includeaddkeyword.c">
      8 <!ENTITY ADDATTRIBUTE SYSTEM "includeaddattribute.c">
      9 <!ENTITY GETATTRIBUTE SYSTEM "includegetattribute.c">
     10 <!ENTITY CONVERT SYSTEM "includeconvert.c">
     11 ]>
     12 <article lang="en">
     13   <articleinfo>
     14     <title>Libxml Tutorial</title>
     15     <author>
     16       <firstname>John</firstname>
     17       <surname>Fleck</surname>
     18       <email>jfleck (a] inkstain.net</email>
     19     </author>
     20     <copyright>
     21       <year>2002, 2003</year>
     22       <holder>John Fleck</holder>
     23     </copyright>
     24     <revhistory>
     25       <revision>
     26 	<revnumber>1</revnumber>
     27 	<date>June 4, 2002</date>
     28 	<revremark>Initial draft</revremark>
     29       </revision>
     30       <revision>
     31 	<revnumber>2</revnumber>
     32 	<date>June 12, 2002</date>
     33 	<revremark>retrieving attribute value added</revremark>
     34       </revision>
     35       <revision>
     36 	<revnumber>3</revnumber>
     37 	<date>Aug. 31, 2002</date>
     38 	<revremark>freeing memory fix</revremark>
     39       </revision>
     40       <revision>
     41 	<revnumber>4</revnumber>
     42 	<date>Nov. 10, 2002</date>
     43 	<revremark>encoding discussion added</revremark>
     44       </revision>
     45       <revision>
     46 	<revnumber>5</revnumber>
     47 	<date>Dec. 15, 2002</date>
     48 	<revremark>more memory freeing changes</revremark>
     49       </revision>
     50       <revision>
     51 	<revnumber>6</revnumber>
     52 	<date>Jan. 26. 2003</date>
     53 	<revremark>add index</revremark>
     54       </revision>
     55       <revision>
     56 	<revnumber>7</revnumber>
     57 	<date>April 25, 2003</date>
     58 	<revremark>add compilation appendix</revremark>
     59       </revision>
     60       <revision>
     61 	<revnumber>8</revnumber>
     62 	<date>July 24, 2003</date>
     63 	<revremark>add XPath example</revremark>
     64       </revision>
     65       <revision>
     66 	<revnumber>9</revnumber>
     67 	<date>Feb. 14, 2004</date>
     68 	<revremark>Fix bug in XPath example</revremark>
     69       </revision>
     70       <revision>
     71 	<revnumber>7</revnumber>
     72 	<date>Aug. 24, 2004</date>
     73 	<revremark>Fix another bug in XPath example</revremark>
     74       </revision>
     75     </revhistory>
     76   </articleinfo>
     77   <abstract>
     78     <para>Libxml is a freely licensed C language library for handling
     79     <acronym>XML</acronym>, portable across a large number of platforms. This
     80     tutorial provides examples of its basic functions.</para>
     81   </abstract>
     82   <sect1 id="introduction">
     83     <title>Introduction</title>
     84     <para>Libxml is a C language library implementing functions for reading,
     85       creating and manipulating <acronym>XML</acronym> data. This tutorial
     86     provides example code and explanations of its basic functionality.</para>
     87     <para>Libxml and more details about its use are available on <ulink
     88 									url="http://www.xmlsoft.org/">the project home page</ulink>. Included there is complete <ulink url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-lib.html">
     89 	<acronym>API</acronym> documentation</ulink>. This tutorial is not meant
     90     to substitute for that complete documentation, but to illustrate the
     91     functions needed to use the library to perform basic operations.
     92 <!--
     93  Links to
     94       other resources can be found in <xref linkend="furtherresources" />.
     95 -->
     96 </para>
     97     <para>The tutorial is based on a simple <acronym>XML</acronym> application I
     98     use for articles I write. The format includes metadata and the body
     99     of the article.</para>
    100     <para>The example code in this tutorial demonstrates how to:
    101       <itemizedlist>
    102 	<listitem>
    103 	  <para>Parse the document.</para>
    104 	</listitem>
    105 	<listitem>
    106 	  <para>Extract the text within a specified element.</para>
    107 	</listitem>
    108 	<listitem>
    109 	  <para>Add an element and its content.</para>
    110 	</listitem>
    111 	<listitem>
    112 	  <para>Add an attribute.</para>
    113 	</listitem>      
    114 	<listitem>
    115 	  <para>Extract the value of an attribute.</para>
    116 	</listitem>
    117       </itemizedlist>
    118     </para>
    119     <para>Full code for the examples is included in the appendices.</para>
    120 
    121   </sect1>
    122 
    123   <sect1 id="xmltutorialdatatypes">
    124     <title>Data Types</title>
    125     <para><application>Libxml</application> declares a number of data types we
    126     will encounter repeatedly, hiding the messy stuff so you do not have to deal
    127     with it unless you have some specific need.</para>
    128     <para>
    129       <variablelist>
    130 	<varlistentry>
    131 	  <term><indexterm>
    132 	      <primary>xmlChar</primary>
    133 	    </indexterm>
    134 <ulink
    135 	  url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLCHAR">xmlChar</ulink></term>
    136 	  <listitem>
    137 	    <para>A basic replacement for char, a byte in a UTF-8 encoded
    138 	    string. If your data uses another encoding, it must be converted to
    139 	      UTF-8 for use with <application>libxml's</application>
    140 	      functions. More information on encoding is available on the <ulink
    141 		url="http://www.xmlsoft.org/encoding.html"><application>libxml</application> encoding support web page</ulink>.</para>
    142 	  </listitem>
    143 	</varlistentry>
    144 	<varlistentry>
    145 	  <term><indexterm>
    146 	      <primary>xmlDoc</primary>
    147 	    </indexterm>
    148 	    <ulink url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLDOC">xmlDoc</ulink></term>
    149 	  <listitem>
    150 	    <para>A structure containing the tree created by a parsed doc. <ulink
    151 	  url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLDOCPTR">xmlDocPtr</ulink>
    152 	  is a pointer to the structure.</para>
    153 	  </listitem>
    154 	</varlistentry>
    155 	<varlistentry>
    156 	  <term><indexterm>
    157 	      <primary>xmlNodePtr</primary>
    158 	    </indexterm>
    159 <ulink
    160 	  url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLNODEPTR">xmlNodePtr</ulink>
    161 	    and <ulink url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLNODE">xmlNode</ulink></term>
    162 	  <listitem>
    163 	    <para>A structure containing a single node. <ulink
    164 	  url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLNODEPTR">xmlNodePtr</ulink>
    165 	  is a pointer to the structure, and is used in traversing the document tree.</para>
    166 	  </listitem>
    167 	</varlistentry>
    168       </variablelist>
    169     </para>
    170 
    171   </sect1>
    172 
    173   <sect1 id="xmltutorialparsing">
    174     <title>Parsing the file</title>
    175     <para><indexterm id="fileparsing" class="startofrange">
    176 	<primary>file</primary>
    177 	<secondary>parsing</secondary>
    178       </indexterm>
    179 Parsing the file requires only the name of the file and a single
    180       function call, plus error checking. Full code: <xref
    181     linkend="keywordappendix" /></para>
    182     <para>
    183     <programlisting>
    184         <co id="declaredoc" /> xmlDocPtr doc;
    185 	<co id="declarenode" /> xmlNodePtr cur;
    186 
    187 	<co id="parsefile" /> doc = xmlParseFile(docname);
    188 	
    189 	<co id="checkparseerror" /> if (doc == NULL ) {
    190 		fprintf(stderr,"Document not parsed successfully. \n");
    191 		return;
    192 	}
    193 
    194 	<co id="getrootelement" /> cur = xmlDocGetRootElement(doc);
    195 	
    196 	<co id="checkemptyerror" /> if (cur == NULL) {
    197 		fprintf(stderr,"empty document\n");
    198 		xmlFreeDoc(doc);
    199 		return;
    200 	}
    201 	
    202 	<co id="checkroottype" /> if (xmlStrcmp(cur->name, (const xmlChar *) "story")) {
    203 		fprintf(stderr,"document of the wrong type, root node != story");
    204 		xmlFreeDoc(doc);
    205 		return;
    206 	}
    207 
    208     </programlisting>
    209       <calloutlist>
    210 	<callout arearefs="declaredoc">
    211 	  <para>Declare the pointer that will point to your parsed document.</para>
    212 	</callout>
    213 	<callout arearefs="declarenode">
    214 	  <para>Declare a node pointer (you'll need this in order to
    215 	  interact with individual nodes).</para>
    216 	</callout>
    217 	<callout arearefs="checkparseerror">
    218 	  <para>Check to see that the document was successfully parsed. If it
    219 	    was not, <application>libxml</application> will at this point
    220 	    register an error and stop. 
    221 	    <note>
    222 	      <para><indexterm>
    223 		  <primary>encoding</primary>
    224 		</indexterm>
    225 One common example of an error at this point is improper
    226 	    handling of encoding. The <acronym>XML</acronym> standard requires
    227 	    documents stored with an encoding other than UTF-8 or UTF-16 to
    228 	    contain an explicit declaration of their encoding. If the
    229 	    declaration is there, <application>libxml</application> will
    230 	    automatically perform the necessary conversion to UTF-8 for
    231 		you. More information on <acronym>XML's</acronym> encoding
    232 		requirements is contained in the <ulink
    233 		  url="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#charencoding">standard</ulink>.</para>
    234 	    </note>
    235 	  </para>
    236 	</callout>
    237 	<callout arearefs="getrootelement">
    238 	  <para>Retrieve the document's root element.</para>
    239 	</callout>
    240 	<callout arearefs="checkemptyerror">
    241 	  <para>Check to make sure the document actually contains something.</para>
    242 	</callout>
    243 	<callout arearefs="checkroottype">
    244 	  <para>In our case, we need to make sure the document is the right
    245 	  type. &quot;story&quot; is the root type of the documents used in this
    246 	  tutorial.</para>
    247 	</callout>
    248       </calloutlist>
    249       <indexterm startref="fileparsing" class="endofrange" />
    250     </para>
    251   </sect1>
    252 
    253   <sect1 id="xmltutorialgettext">
    254     <title>Retrieving Element Content</title>
    255     <para><indexterm>
    256 	<primary>element</primary>
    257 	<secondary>retrieving content</secondary>
    258       </indexterm>
    259 Retrieving the content of an element involves traversing the document
    260     tree until you find what you are looking for. In this case, we are looking
    261     for an element called &quot;keyword&quot; contained within element called &quot;story&quot;. The
    262     process to find the node we are interested in involves tediously walking the
    263     tree. We assume you already have an xmlDocPtr called <varname>doc</varname>
    264     and an xmlNodPtr called <varname>cur</varname>.</para>
    265 
    266     <para>
    267       <programlisting>
    268 	<co id="getchildnode" />cur = cur->xmlChildrenNode;
    269 	<co id="huntstoryinfo" />while (cur != NULL) {
    270 		if ((!xmlStrcmp(cur->name, (const xmlChar *)"storyinfo"))){
    271 			parseStory (doc, cur);
    272 		}
    273 		 
    274 	cur = cur->next;
    275 	}
    276       </programlisting>
    277 
    278       <calloutlist>
    279 	<callout arearefs="getchildnode">
    280 	  <para>Get the first child node of <varname>cur</varname>. At this
    281 	    point, <varname>cur</varname> points at the document root, which is
    282 	    the element &quot;story&quot;.</para>
    283 	</callout>
    284 	<callout arearefs="huntstoryinfo">
    285 	  <para>This loop iterates through the elements that are children of
    286 	  &quot;story&quot;, looking for one called &quot;storyinfo&quot;. That
    287 	  is the element that will contain the &quot;keywords&quot; we are
    288 	    looking for. It uses the <application>libxml</application> string
    289 	  comparison
    290 	    function, <function><ulink
    291 				       url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-parser.html#XMLSTRCMP">xmlStrcmp</ulink></function>. If there is a match, it calls the function <function>parseStory</function>.</para>
    292 	</callout>
    293       </calloutlist>
    294     </para>
    295 
    296     <para>
    297       <programlisting>
    298 void
    299 parseStory (xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNodePtr cur) {
    300 
    301 	xmlChar *key;
    302 	<co id="anothergetchild" /> cur = cur->xmlChildrenNode;
    303 	<co id="findkeyword" /> while (cur != NULL) {
    304 	    if ((!xmlStrcmp(cur->name, (const xmlChar *)"keyword"))) {
    305 	<co id="foundkeyword" />	    key = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, cur->xmlChildrenNode, 1);
    306 		    printf("keyword: %s\n", key);
    307 		    xmlFree(key);
    308  	    }
    309 	cur = cur->next;
    310 	}
    311     return;
    312 }
    313       </programlisting>
    314       <calloutlist>
    315 	<callout arearefs="anothergetchild">
    316 	  <para>Again we get the first child node.</para>
    317 	</callout>
    318 	<callout arearefs="findkeyword">
    319 	  <para>Like the loop above, we then iterate through the nodes, looking
    320 	  for one that matches the element we're interested in, in this case
    321 	  &quot;keyword&quot;.</para>
    322 	</callout>
    323 	<callout arearefs="foundkeyword">
    324 	  <para>When we find the &quot;keyword&quot; element, we need to print
    325 	    its contents. Remember that in <acronym>XML</acronym>, the text
    326 	    contained within an element is a child node of that element, so we
    327 	    turn to <varname>cur-&gt;xmlChildrenNode</varname>. To retrieve it, we
    328 	    use the function <function><ulink
    329 					      url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLNODELISTGETSTRING">xmlNodeListGetString</ulink></function>, which also takes the <varname>doc</varname> pointer as an argument. In this case, we just print it out.</para>
    330 	  <note>
    331 	    <para>Because <function>xmlNodeListGetString</function> allocates
    332 	      memory for the string it returns, you must use
    333 	      <function>xmlFree</function> to free it.</para>
    334 	  </note>
    335 	</callout>
    336       </calloutlist>
    337     </para>
    338 
    339   </sect1>
    340   <sect1 id="xmltutorialxpath">
    341     <title>Using XPath to Retrieve Element Content</title>
    342     <para>In addition to walking the document tree to find an element,
    343     <application>Libxml2</application> includes support for
    344       use of <application>XPath</application> expressions to retrieve sets of
    345       nodes that match a specified criteria. Full documentation of the
    346       <application>XPath</application> <acronym>API</acronym> is <ulink
    347 	url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-xpath.html">here</ulink>.
    348     </para>
    349     <para><application>XPath</application> allows searching through a document
    350     for nodes that match specified criteria. In the example below we search
    351       through a document for the contents of all <varname>keyword</varname>
    352     elements.
    353       <note>
    354 	<para>A full discussion of <application>XPath</application> is beyond
    355 	  the scope of this document. For details on its use, see the <ulink
    356 	    url="http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath">XPath specification</ulink>.</para>
    357       </note>
    358       Full code for this example is at <xref linkend="xpathappendix" />.
    359     </para>
    360     <para>Using <application>XPath</application> requires setting up an
    361       xmlXPathContext and then supplying the <application>XPath</application>
    362       expression and the context to the
    363       <function>xmlXPathEvalExpression</function> function. The function returns
    364       an xmlXPathObjectPtr, which includes the set of nodes satisfying the
    365       <application>XPath</application> expression.</para>
    366     <para>
    367       <programlisting>
    368 	xmlXPathObjectPtr
    369 	getnodeset (xmlDocPtr doc, xmlChar *xpath){
    370 	
    371 	<co id="cocontext" />xmlXPathContextPtr context;
    372 	xmlXPathObjectPtr result;
    373 
    374 	<co id="cocreatecontext" />context = xmlXPathNewContext(doc);
    375 	<co id="corunxpath" />result = xmlXPathEvalExpression(xpath, context);
    376 	<co id="cocheckxpathresult" />if(xmlXPathNodeSetIsEmpty(result->nodesetval)){
    377 		xmlXPathFreeObject(result);
    378                 printf("No result\n");
    379 		return NULL;
    380       </programlisting>
    381       <calloutlist>
    382 	<callout arearefs="cocontext">
    383 	  <para>First we declare our variables.</para>
    384 	</callout>
    385 	<callout arearefs="cocreatecontext">
    386 	  <para>Initialize the <varname>context</varname> variable.</para>
    387 	</callout>
    388 	<callout arearefs="corunxpath">
    389 	  <para>Apply the <application>XPath</application> expression.</para>
    390 	</callout>
    391 	<callout arearefs="cocheckxpathresult">
    392 	  <para>Check the result and free the memory allocated to
    393 	    <varname>result</varname> if no result is found.</para>
    394 	</callout>
    395       </calloutlist>
    396     </para>
    397     <para>The xmlPathObjectPtr returned by the function contains a set of nodes
    398     and other information needed to iterate through the set and act on the
    399       results. For this example, our functions returns the
    400     <varname>xmlXPathObjectPtr</varname>. We use it to print the contents of
    401       <varname>keyword</varname> nodes in our document. The node set object
    402       includes the number of elements in the set (<varname>nodeNr</varname>) and
    403       an array of nodes (<varname>nodeTab</varname>):
    404       <programlisting>
    405 	<co id="conodesetcounter" />for (i=0; i &lt; nodeset->nodeNr; i++) {
    406 	<co id="coprintkeywords" />keyword = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, nodeset->nodeTab[i]->xmlChildrenNode, 1);
    407 		printf("keyword: %s\n", keyword);
    408 	        xmlFree(keyword);
    409 	}
    410       </programlisting>
    411       <calloutlist>
    412 	<callout arearefs="conodesetcounter">
    413 	  <para>The value of <varname>nodeset->Nr</varname> holds the number of
    414 	  elements in the node set. Here we use it to iterate through the array.</para>
    415 	</callout>
    416 	<callout arearefs="coprintkeywords">
    417 	  <para>Here we print the contents of each of the nodes returned.
    418 	    <note>
    419 	      <para>Note that we are printing the child node of the node that is
    420 		returned, because the contents of the <varname>keyword</varname>
    421 		element are a child text node.</para>
    422 	    </note>
    423 	  </para>
    424 	</callout>
    425       </calloutlist>
    426     </para>
    427   </sect1>
    428 <sect1 id="xmltutorialwritingcontent">
    429     <title>Writing element content</title>
    430     <para><indexterm>
    431 	<primary>element</primary>
    432 	<secondary>writing content</secondary>
    433       </indexterm>
    434       Writing element content uses many of the same steps we used above
    435       &mdash; parsing the document and walking the tree. We parse the document,
    436       then traverse the tree to find the place we want to insert our element. For
    437       this example, we want to again find the &quot;storyinfo&quot; element and
    438       this time insert a keyword. Then we'll write the file to disk. Full code:
    439       <xref linkend="addkeywordappendix" /></para>
    440     <para>
    441       The main difference in this example is in
    442       <function>parseStory</function>:
    443 
    444       <programlisting>
    445 void
    446 parseStory (xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNodePtr cur, char *keyword) {
    447 
    448 	<co id="addkeyword" /> xmlNewTextChild (cur, NULL, "keyword", keyword);
    449     return;
    450 }
    451       </programlisting>
    452       <calloutlist>
    453 	<callout arearefs="addkeyword">
    454 	  <para>The <function><ulink
    455 				     url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLNEWTEXTCHILD">xmlNewTextChild</ulink></function>
    456 				     function adds a new child element at the
    457 				     current node pointer's location in the
    458 	    tree, specified by <varname>cur</varname>.</para>
    459 	</callout>
    460       </calloutlist>
    461          </para>
    462 
    463     <para>
    464       <indexterm>
    465 	<primary>file</primary>
    466 	<secondary>saving</secondary>
    467       </indexterm>
    468       Once the node has been added, we would like to write the document to
    469       file. Is you want the element to have a namespace, you can add it here as
    470       well. In our case, the namespace is NULL.
    471       <programlisting>
    472 	xmlSaveFormatFile (docname, doc, 1);
    473       </programlisting>
    474       The first parameter is the name of the file to be written. You'll notice
    475       it is the same as the file we just read. In this case, we just write over
    476       the old file. The second parameter is a pointer to the xmlDoc
    477       structure. Setting the third parameter equal to one ensures indenting on output.
    478     </para>
    479   </sect1>
    480 
    481   <sect1 id="xmltutorialwritingattribute">
    482     <title>Writing Attribute</title>
    483     <para><indexterm>
    484 	<primary>attribute</primary>
    485 	<secondary>writing</secondary>
    486       </indexterm>
    487 Writing an attribute is similar to writing text to a new element. In
    488       this case, we'll add a reference <acronym>URI</acronym> to our
    489       document. Full code:<xref linkend="addattributeappendix" />.</para>
    490     <para>
    491       A <sgmltag>reference</sgmltag> is a child of the <sgmltag>story</sgmltag>
    492       element, so finding the place to put our new element and attribute is
    493       simple. As soon as we do the error-checking test in our
    494       <function>parseDoc</function>, we are in the right spot to add our
    495       element. But before we do that, we need to make a declaration using a
    496       data type we have not seen yet:
    497       <programlisting>
    498 	xmlAttrPtr newattr;
    499       </programlisting>
    500       We also need an extra xmlNodePtr:
    501       <programlisting>
    502 	xmlNodePtr newnode;
    503       </programlisting>
    504     </para>
    505     <para>
    506       The rest of <function>parseDoc</function> is the same as before until we
    507       check to see if our root element is <sgmltag>story</sgmltag>. If it is,
    508       then we know we are at the right spot to add our element:
    509 
    510       <programlisting>
    511 	<co id="addreferencenode" /> newnode = xmlNewTextChild (cur, NULL, "reference", NULL);
    512 	<co id="addattributenode" /> newattr = xmlNewProp (newnode, "uri", uri);	
    513       </programlisting>
    514       <calloutlist>
    515 	<callout arearefs="addreferencenode">
    516 	  <para>First we add a new node at the location of the current node
    517 	    pointer, <varname>cur.</varname> using the <ulink
    518 							      url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLNEWTEXTCHILD">xmlNewTextChild</ulink> function.</para>
    519 	</callout>
    520       </calloutlist>
    521    </para>
    522 
    523     <para>Once the node is added, the file is written to disk just as in the
    524     previous example in which we added an element with text content.</para>
    525 
    526   </sect1>
    527 
    528   <sect1 id="xmltutorialattribute">
    529     <title>Retrieving Attributes</title>
    530     <para><indexterm>
    531 	<primary>attribute</primary>
    532 	<secondary>retrieving value</secondary>
    533       </indexterm>
    534 Retrieving the value of an attribute is similar to the previous
    535     example in which we retrieved a node's text contents. In this case we'll
    536       extract the value of the <acronym>URI</acronym> we added in the previous
    537       section. Full code: <xref linkend="getattributeappendix" />.</para>
    538     <para>
    539       The initial steps for this example are similar to the previous ones: parse
    540       the doc, find the element you are interested in, then enter a function to
    541       carry out the specific task required. In this case, we call
    542       <function>getReference</function>:
    543       <programlisting>
    544 void
    545 getReference (xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNodePtr cur) {
    546 
    547 	xmlChar *uri;
    548 	cur = cur->xmlChildrenNode;
    549 	while (cur != NULL) {
    550 	    if ((!xmlStrcmp(cur->name, (const xmlChar *)"reference"))) {
    551 		   <co id="getattributevalue" /> uri = xmlGetProp(cur, "uri");
    552 		    printf("uri: %s\n", uri);
    553 		    xmlFree(uri);
    554 	    }
    555 	    cur = cur->next;
    556 	}
    557 	return;
    558 }
    559       </programlisting>
    560     
    561       <calloutlist>
    562 	<callout arearefs="getattributevalue">
    563 	  <para>
    564 	    The key function is <function><ulink
    565 					   url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLGETPROP">xmlGetProp</ulink></function>, which returns an
    566       <varname>xmlChar</varname> containing the attribute's value. In this case,
    567 					   we just print it out.
    568       <note>
    569 	<para>
    570 	  If you are using a <acronym>DTD</acronym> that declares a fixed or
    571 	  default value for the attribute, this function will retrieve it.
    572 	</para>
    573 	    </note>
    574 	  </para>
    575 	</callout>
    576       </calloutlist>
    577      
    578     </para>
    579   </sect1>
    580 
    581   <sect1 id="xmltutorialconvert">
    582     <title>Encoding Conversion</title>
    583 
    584     <para><indexterm>
    585 	<primary>encoding</primary>
    586       </indexterm>
    587 Data encoding compatibility problems are one of the most common
    588       difficulties encountered by programmers new to <acronym>XML</acronym> in
    589       general and <application>libxml</application> in particular. Thinking
    590       through the design of your application in light of this issue will help
    591       avoid difficulties later. Internally, <application>libxml</application>
    592       stores and manipulates data in the UTF-8 format. Data used by your program
    593       in other formats, such as the commonly used ISO-8859-1 encoding, must be
    594       converted to UTF-8 before passing it to <application>libxml</application>
    595       functions. If you want your program's output in an encoding other than
    596       UTF-8, you also must convert it.</para>
    597 
    598       <para><application>Libxml</application> uses
    599       <application>iconv</application> if it is available to convert
    600     data. Without <application>iconv</application>, only UTF-8, UTF-16 and
    601     ISO-8859-1 can be used as external formats. With
    602     <application>iconv</application>, any format can be used provided
    603     <application>iconv</application> is able to convert it to and from
    604     UTF-8. Currently <application>iconv</application> supports about 150
    605     different character formats with ability to convert from any to any. While
    606     the actual number of supported formats varies between implementations, every
    607     <application>iconv</application> implementation is almost guaranteed to
    608     support every format anyone has ever heard of.</para>
    609 
    610     <warning>
    611       <para>A common mistake is to use different formats for the internal data
    612 	in different parts of one's code. The most common case is an application
    613 	that assumes ISO-8859-1 to be the internal data format, combined with
    614 	<application>libxml</application>, which assumes UTF-8 to be the
    615 	internal data format. The result is an application that treats internal
    616 	data differently, depending on which code section is executing. The one or
    617 	the other part of code will then, naturally, misinterpret the data.
    618       </para>
    619     </warning>
    620 
    621     <para>This example constructs a simple document, then adds content provided
    622     at the command line to the document's root element and outputs the results
    623     to <filename>stdout</filename> in the proper encoding. For this example, we
    624     use ISO-8859-1 encoding. The encoding of the string input at the command
    625     line is converted from ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8. Full code: <xref
    626     linkend="convertappendix" /></para>
    627 
    628     <para>The conversion, encapsulated in the example code in the
    629       <function>convert</function> function, uses
    630       <application>libxml's</application>
    631     <function>xmlFindCharEncodingHandler</function> function:
    632       <programlisting>
    633 	<co id="handlerdatatype" />xmlCharEncodingHandlerPtr handler;
    634         <co id="calcsize" />size = (int)strlen(in)+1; 
    635         out_size = size*2-1; 
    636         out = malloc((size_t)out_size); 
    637 
    638 &hellip;
    639 	<co id="findhandlerfunction" />handler = xmlFindCharEncodingHandler(encoding);
    640 &hellip;
    641 	<co id="callconversionfunction" />handler->input(out, &amp;out_size, in, &amp;temp);
    642 &hellip;	
    643 	<co id="outputencoding" />xmlSaveFormatFileEnc("-", doc, encoding, 1);
    644       </programlisting>
    645       <calloutlist>
    646 	<callout arearefs="handlerdatatype">
    647 	  <para><varname>handler</varname> is declared as a pointer to an
    648 	    <function>xmlCharEncodingHandler</function> function.</para>
    649 	</callout>
    650 	<callout arearefs="calcsize">
    651 	  <para>The <function>xmlCharEncodingHandler</function> function needs
    652 	  to be given the size of the input and output strings, which are
    653 	    calculated here for strings <varname>in</varname> and
    654 	  <varname>out</varname>.</para>
    655 	</callout>
    656 	<callout arearefs="findhandlerfunction">
    657 	  <para><function>xmlFindCharEncodingHandler</function> takes as its
    658 	    argument the data's initial encoding and searches
    659 	    <application>libxml's</application> built-in set of conversion
    660 	    handlers, returning a pointer to the function or NULL if none is
    661 	    found.</para>
    662 	</callout>
    663 	<callout arearefs="callconversionfunction">
    664 	  <para>The conversion function identified by <varname>handler</varname>
    665 	  requires as its arguments pointers to the input and output strings,
    666 	  along with the length of each. The lengths must be determined
    667 	  separately by the application.</para>
    668 	</callout>
    669 	<callout arearefs="outputencoding">
    670 	  <para>To output in a specified encoding rather than UTF-8, we use
    671 	    <function>xmlSaveFormatFileEnc</function>, specifying the
    672 	    encoding.</para>
    673 	</callout>
    674       </calloutlist>
    675     </para>
    676   </sect1>
    677 
    678   <appendix id="compilation">
    679     <title>Compilation</title>
    680     <para><indexterm>
    681 	<primary>compiler flags</primary>
    682       </indexterm>
    683       <application>Libxml</application> includes a script,
    684     <application>xml2-config</application>, that can be used to generate
    685     flags for compilation and linking of programs written with the
    686       library. For pre-processor and compiler flags, use <command>xml2-config
    687 	--cflags</command>. For library linking flags, use <command>xml2-config
    688 	--libs</command>. Other options are available using <command>xml2-config
    689     --help</command>.</para>   
    690   </appendix>
    691 
    692   <appendix id="sampledoc">
    693     <title>Sample Document</title>
    694     <programlisting>&STORY;</programlisting>
    695   </appendix>
    696   <appendix id="keywordappendix">
    697     <title>Code for Keyword Example</title>
    698     <para>
    699       <programlisting>&KEYWORD;</programlisting>
    700     </para>
    701   </appendix>
    702   <appendix id="xpathappendix">
    703     <title>Code for XPath Example</title>
    704     <para>
    705       <programlisting>&XPATH;</programlisting>
    706     </para>
    707   </appendix>
    708 <appendix id="addkeywordappendix">
    709     <title>Code for Add Keyword Example</title>
    710     <para>
    711       <programlisting>&ADDKEYWORD;</programlisting>
    712     </para>
    713   </appendix>
    714 <appendix id="addattributeappendix">
    715     <title>Code for Add Attribute Example</title>
    716     <para>
    717       <programlisting>&ADDATTRIBUTE;</programlisting>
    718     </para>
    719   </appendix>
    720 <appendix id="getattributeappendix">
    721     <title>Code for Retrieving Attribute Value Example</title>
    722     <para>
    723       <programlisting>&GETATTRIBUTE;</programlisting>
    724     </para>
    725   </appendix>
    726   <appendix id="convertappendix">
    727     <title>Code for Encoding Conversion Example</title>
    728     <para>
    729       <programlisting>&CONVERT;</programlisting>
    730     </para>
    731   </appendix>
    732   <appendix>
    733     <title>Acknowledgements</title>
    734     <para>A number of people have generously offered feedback, code and
    735     suggested improvements to this tutorial. In no particular order:
    736       <simplelist type="inline">
    737 	<member>Daniel Veillard</member>
    738 	<member>Marcus Labib Iskander</member>
    739 	<member>Christopher R. Harris</member>
    740 	<member>Igor Zlatkovic</member>
    741 	<member>Niraj Tolia</member>
    742 	<member>David Turover</member>
    743       </simplelist>
    744     </para>
    745   </appendix>
    746   <index />
    747 </article>
    748