How Can I Properly Format XML Output in PHP?

PHP XML: Achieving Properly Formatted Output

In PHP XML programming, formatting output as desired can be a concern. When an XML document is rendered in a browser, it may appear as a single line, without the desired structure and indentation. This issue arises when white space is stripped during the XML saving process.

Solution:

To resolve this, PHP provides two parameters for DomDocument:

• preserveWhiteSpace: Setting this to false prevents white space from being stripped.
• formatOutput: Setting this to true instructs PHP to format the output XML aesthetically.

Implementation:

// ... (code as before)

// Set the formatting parameters
$doc->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
$doc->formatOutput = true;

// Get the formatted XML output
$xml_string = $doc->saveXML();
echo $xml_string;

Alternatively, these parameters can be set immediately after creating the DomDocument:

$doc = new DomDocument('1.0');
$doc->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
$doc->formatOutput = true;

Sample Output:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <error>
    <a>eee</a>
    <b>sd</b>
    <c>df</c>
  </error>
  <error>
    <a>eee</a>
    <b>sd</b>
    <c>df</c>
  </error>
  <error>
    <a>eee</a>
    <b>sd</b>
    <c>df</c>
  </error>
</root>

Indentation:

PHP does not allow altering the indentation character. However, you can post-process the XML using regular expressions or utilize the tidy extension's tidy_repair_string function, which provides indentation options.

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