Name

Simple XML Subset Parser — parses a subset of XML.

Library

glib.lib

Synopsis

#include <glib.h>

enum         GMarkupError;
#define      G_MARKUP_ERROR
enum         GMarkupParseFlags;
             GMarkupParseContext;
             GMarkupParser;
gchar*       g_markup_escape_text                       (const gchar *text, gssize length);
gchar*       g_markup_printf_escaped                    (const char *format, ...);
gchar*       g_markup_vprintf_escaped                   (const char *format, va_list args);
gboolean     g_markup_parse_context_end_parse           (GMarkupParseContext *context, GError **error);
void         g_markup_parse_context_free                (GMarkupParseContext *context);
void         g_markup_parse_context_get_position        (GMarkupParseContext *context, gint *line_number, gint *char_number);
const gchar* g_markup_parse_context_get_element         (GMarkupParseContext *context);
GMarkupParseContext* g_markup_parse_context_new         (const GMarkupParser *parser, GMarkupParseFlags flags, 
                                                         gpointer user_data, GDestroyNotify user_data_dnotify);
gboolean     g_markup_parse_context_parse               (GMarkupParseContext *context, const gchar *text, 
                                                         gssize text_len, GError **error);

Detailed Description

The "GMarkup" parser is intended to parse a simple markup format that is a subset of XML. This is a small, efficient, easy-to-use parser. It should not be used if inter-operatablity with other applications generating full-scale XML is expected. However, it's very useful for application data files, config files, etc. where it is known that the application will be the only one writing the file. Full-scale XML parsers should be able to parse the subset used by GMarkup, enabling the ease to migrate to full-scale XML at a later time if the need arises.

GMarkup is not guaranteed to signal an error on all invalid XML; the parser may accept documents that an XML parser would not. However, XML documents which are not well-formed^[4] are not considered valid GMarkup documents.

Simplifications to XML include:

Only UTF-8 encoding is allowed.
No user-defined entities.
Processing instructions, comments and the doc type declaration are "passed through" but are not interpreted in any way.
No DTD or validation.

The markup format does support:

Elements
Attributes
5 standard entities: & < > " '
Character references
Sections marked as CDATA

Details

enum GMarkupError

typedef enum
{
  G_MARKUP_ERROR_BAD_UTF8, G_MARKUP_ERROR_EMPTY, G_MARKUP_ERROR_PARSE,
  /* These three are primarily intended for specific GMarkupParser
   * implementations to set.
   */
  G_MARKUP_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ELEMENT, G_MARKUP_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ATTRIBUTE, G_MARKUP_ERROR_INVALID_CONTENT
} GMarkupError;

Error codes returned by markup parsing.

`G_MARKUP_ERROR_BAD_UTF8`	text being parsed was not valid UTF-8
`G_MARKUP_ERROR_EMPTY`	document contained nothing, or only white space
`G_MARKUP_ERROR_PARSE`	document was ill-formed
`G_MARKUP_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ELEMENT`	error should be set by GMarkupParser functions; element wasn't known
`G_MARKUP_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ATTRIBUTE`	error should be set by GMarkupParser functions; attribute wasn't known
`G_MARKUP_ERROR_INVALID_CONTENT`	error should be set by GMarkupParser functions; something was wrong with contents of the document, e.g. invalid attribute value

G_MARKUP_ERROR

#define G_MARKUP_ERROR g_markup_error_quark ()

Error domain for markup parsing. Errors in this domain will be from the GMarkupError enumeration. See GError for information on error domains.

enum GMarkupParseFlags

typedef enum
{
  /* Hmm, cannot think of any at the moment */
  G_MARKUP_DO_NOT_USE_THIS_UNSUPPORTED_FLAG = 1 << 0
  
} GMarkupParseFlags;

There are no flags right now. Pass "0" for the flags argument to all functions.

G_MARKUP_DO_NOT_USE_THIS_UNSUPPORTED_FLAG flag that should not be used.

GMarkupParseContext

typedef struct _GMarkupParseContext GMarkupParseContext;

A parse context is used to parse a stream of bytes that are expected to contain marked-up text. See g_markup_parse_context_new(), GMarkupParser, and so on for more details.

GMarkupParser

typedef struct {
  /* Called for open tags <foo bar="baz"> */
  void (*start_element)  (GMarkupParseContext *context, const gchar  *element_name, const gchar   **attribute_names, 
                          const gchar        **attribute_values, gpointer user_data, GError  **error);

  /* Called for close tags </foo> */
  void (*end_element)    (GMarkupParseContext *context, const gchar  *element_name, gpointer  user_data, GError  **error);

  /* Called for character data */
  /* text is not nul-terminated */
  void (*text)           (GMarkupParseContext *context, const gchar  *text, gsize  text_len, gpointer  user_data, GError  **error);

  /* Called for strings that should be re-saved verbatim in this same
   * position, but are not otherwise interpretable.  At the moment
   * this includes comments and processing instructions.
   */
  /* text is not nul-terminated. */
  void (*passthrough)    (GMarkupParseContext *context, const gchar  *passthrough_text, gsize  text_len, gpointer  user_data, GError **error);

  /* Called on error, including one set by other
   * methods in the vtable. The GError should not be freed.
   */
  void (*error)          (GMarkupParseContext *context, GError  *error, gpointer  user_data); 
} GMarkupParser;

Any of the fields in GMarkupParser can be NULL, in which case they will be ignored. Except for the error function, any of these callbacks can set an error; in particular the G_MARKUP_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ELEMENT, G_MARKUP_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ATTRIBUTE, and G_MARKUP_ERROR_INVALID_CONTENT errors are intended to be set from these callbacks. If an error from a callback is set, g_markup_parse_context_parse() will report that error back to its caller.

`start_element` ()	Callback to invoke when the opening tag of an element is seen.
`end_element` ()	Callback to invoke when the closing tag of an element is seen
`text` ()	Callback to invoke when some text is seen (text is always inside an element)
`passthrough` ()	Callback to invoke for comments, processing instructions and doc type declarations; if you're re-writing the parsed document, write the passthrough text back out in the same position
`error` ()	Callback to invoke when an error occurs

g_markup_escape_text ()

gchar*      g_markup_escape_text      (const gchar *text, gssize length);

Escapes text so that the markup parser will parse it verbatim. Less than, greater than, ampersand, etc. are replaced with the corresponding entities. This function would typically be used when writing out a file to be parsed with the markup parser.

Note that this function does not protect white space and line endings from being processed according to the XML rules for normalization of line endings and attribute values.

`text` :	some valid UTF-8 text
`length` :	length of `text` in bytes, or -1 if the text is nul-terminated
Returns :	a newly allocated string with the escaped text

g_markup_printf_escaped ()

gchar*      g_markup_printf_escaped         (const char *format, ...);

Formats arguments according to format, escaping all string and character arguments in the fashion of g_markup_escape_text(). This is useful to insert literal strings into XML-style markup output, without having to worry that the strings might themselves contain markup.

const char *store = "Fortnum & Mason";
const char *item = "Tea";
char *output;
 
output = g_markup_printf_escaped ("<purchase>"
                                  "<store>%s</store>"
                                  "<item>%s</item>"
                                  "</purchase>",
                                  store, item);

`format` :	`printf()` style format string
`...` :	the arguments to insert in the format string
Returns :	newly allocated result from formatting operation. Free with `g_free()`.

g_markup_vprintf_escaped ()

gchar*      g_markup_vprintf_escaped        (const char *format, va_list args);

Formats the data in args according to format, escaping all string and character arguments in the fashion of g_markup_escape_text(). See g_markup_printf_escaped().

`format` :	`printf()` style format string
`args` :	variable argument list, similar to `vprintf()`
Returns :	newly allocated result from formatting operation. Free with `g_free()`.

g_markup_parse_context_end_parse ()

gboolean    g_markup_parse_context_end_parse
                                            (GMarkupParseContext *context, GError **error);

Signals to the GMarkupParseContext that all data has been fed into the parse context with g_markup_parse_context_parse(). This function reports an error if the document isn't complete, for example if elements are still open.

`context` :	a GMarkupParseContext
`error` :	return location for a GError
Returns :	`TRUE` on success, `FALSE` if an error was set

g_markup_parse_context_free ()

void      g_markup_parse_context_free            (GMarkupParseContext *context);

Frees a GMarkupParseContext. cannot be called from inside one of the GMarkupParser functions.

context : a GMarkupParseContext

g_markup_parse_context_get_position ()

void      g_markup_parse_context_get_position     (GMarkupParseContext *context, gint *line_number, gint *char_number);

Retrieves the current line number and the number of the character on that line. Intended for use in error messages; there are no strict semantics for what constitutes the "current" line number other than "the best number we could come up with for error messages."

`context` :	a GMarkupParseContext
`line_number` :	return location for a line number, or `NULL`
`char_number` :	return location for a char-on-line number, or `NULL`

g_markup_parse_context_get_element ()

const gchar* g_markup_parse_context_get_element   (GMarkupParseContext *context);

Retrieves the name of the currently open element.

`context` :	a GMarkupParseContext
Returns :	the name of the currently open element, or `NULL`

g_markup_parse_context_new ()

GMarkupParseContext* g_markup_parse_context_new     (const GMarkupParser *parser, GMarkupParseFlags flags, gpointer user_data, GDestroyNotify user_data_dnotify);

Creates a new parse context. A parse context is used to parse marked-up documents. Any number of documents can be fed into a context, as long as no errors occur; once an error occurs, the parse context cannot continue to parse text (it has to be freed and a new parse context created).

`parser` :	a GMarkupParser
`flags` :	one or more GMarkupParseFlags
`user_data` :	user data to pass to GMarkupParser functions
`user_data_dnotify` :	user data destroy notifier called when the parse context is freed
Returns :	a new GMarkupParseContext

g_markup_parse_context_parse ()

gboolean    g_markup_parse_context_parse    (GMarkupParseContext *context, const gchar *text, gssize text_len, GError **error);

Feed some data to the GMarkupParseContext. The data need not be valid UTF-8; an error will be signaled if it is invalid. The data need not be an entire document; a document can be fed into the parser incrementally, via multiple calls to this function. Typically, as the data is received from a network connection or file, feed each received chunk of data into this function, aborting the process if an error occurs. Once an error is reported, no further data may be fed to the GMarkupParseContext; all errors are fatal.

`context` :	a GMarkupParseContext
`text` :	chunk of text to parse
`text_len` :	length of `text` in bytes
`error` :	return location for a GError
Returns :	`FALSE` if an error occurred, `TRUE` on success

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^[^4] XML specification