XML Toolbox

Conversion of MATLAB data types to XML and vice versa.

Description

The XML Toolbox converts MATLAB data structures of any level of nesting into an XML string. It also reads most types of XML strings/files and converts these into a Matlab structure.
Six simple functions are provided for this task:
xml_format()
xml_formatany()
xml_parse()
xml_parseany()
xml_load()
xml_save()
and help in xml_help.

This toolbox comes with an extensive pdf manual (35 pages).

Structures like this
>> project.name = 'MyProject';
>> project.id = 1234;
>> project.param.a = 3.1415;
>> project.param.b = 42;

can easily be converted with a command like str=xml_format(project,'off') to
result in:

<project>
..<name>MyProject</name>
..<id>1234</id>
..<param>
....<a>3.1415</a>
....<b>42</b>
..</param>
</project>

• Acknowledgements: This submission has inspired the following:; generateXML, Gait Extract Toolbox
• MATLAB release: MATLAB 6.5 (R13)
• Other requirements: Tested under Matlab 6.5 (R13) and 7.0.1 (R14SP1). This is XML Toolbox Version 3.1.2.

[Stefan Zimmerman]

Just what I've been looking for - easy to use and powerful XML to Matlab converter! - Excellent tool.

[Benjamin Davis]

Concise and simple to use. Authors didn't fall into the "over do-it" trap of software tool development.

[Wilson Cheung]

This is much easier to use than Matlab's built xmlread and xmlwrite which require you to be an expert handling XML DOM. It just works like you would expect it to work. The documentation and examples use code is good.

[Ken Doniger]

Very simple and effective.
One small complaint: Matlab complains that the P-files are older than the M-files.

[lywhus lywhus]

The functionality is good. But be aware it is not open source and the author does not intent to make the source available.
Please try to use XML4MAT v2.0 instead.

[Concern Reviewer]

Good functionality, but the p-file coding limits it usability.

[Jose Andrickson]

 

[Concern Matlab User]

 

[Knoll Gernot]

That was I'm searching for!
Best free tool what I ever seen

[Jaroslaw Tuszynski]

Very nice interface, but has many problems:
1) slow - a file parsed by readxml in 13 sec took 8 min for xml_parseany
2) buggy - If you stray from examples than both reading and writing can produce wrong results, like invalid xml code.
3) lack of .m files prevents debugging

[A. Belani]

A Warning stating that the p code is older than the m code can be received when running some functions from this toolbox. Such warnings can be disabled by using:

warnings_state=warning('off','all');
%Use the desired toolbox functions now.
warning(warnings_state);

[Randy Bithell]

It does what it is intended to do. The documentation was the only way I would have known how to get the CONTENT out of the structure. Since only p-files you cannot compile and make an *.exe if that matters to you. You can delete (or move) the m-files if the warning is bothering you, they are obviously just descriptions for when you call the function.

[Peter Cotton]

Suggest either testing under more versions of Matlab (e.g. 64 bit) or making m-files available for others to do the same.

[Jaakko R]

Buggy and closed source.

[Almon Ing]

It did the job for me, and my XML files are pretty complicated.

[xia tian]

Good

[�ris �lafsdóttir]

It is a very effective function, but the drawback is that all the elements in the structure are cells and this cannot be changed. I need a structure of a certain format but have to convert every single element of the structure from cell to array.

[K T]

If I have:

a =

    b: [3x3 struct]

where:

a.b =
3x3 struct array with fields:
    ATTRIBUTE
    CONTENT

where each of the 3x3 struct array of ATTRIBUTE is:

    k: 1 %(some number)
    j: 1 %(another number)

The xml that is generated is not correct...It only generates xml for the first of the 3x3 array of structs.

Any idea how to get around this issue?

Thanks - Kartik

[bill law]

It is really a useful tool, but why couldn't i find the file 'xml_toolbox.pdf'?

[Maarten V]

Very useful tool. One question: I have warnings that the p-files (28/01/2005) are older than the m-files (15/04/2005). Do I need to create new p-files, based on the m-files in the ZIP? Or is it better to do it not?

[Jose Andrickson]

Soy profor universitario y me gustaria probar las prestaciones de esta herramienta

[tuan hoang minh]

 

[Jeremy Wilcox]

This XML toolbox was great for my needs:
It allows an easy reading of XML files into matlab and the data handling is efficient.

Thanks!

[Dil Djumanov]

Hi, if TAG name has minus '-' then it gives the next error.
??? Error using ==> setfield
Error using ==> subsasgn
Invalid field name component.

Error in ==> C:\ProgramFiles\MATLAB71\toolbox\xml_toolbox\xml_parseany.p>xml_parseany at 154

Error in ==> C:\ProgramFiles\MATLAB71\toolbox\xml_toolbox\xml_parseany.p>xml_parseany at 163

Can it be fixed please.
Thanks

[Gerald Corzo]

Does anyone know how the attributes doesnt read

[BAO BING]

 

[hill how]

 

[lin chen]

 

[manoj loganathan]

superb

[Gerard Sanromà]

good!.. it gives better results than other XML Toolboxes that I have tried for converting .gxl files (graph exchange format) into matlab structures.. Thanks

[Guillaume Jacquenot]

Good job, but the import of an xml file in MatLab may contain redundant data.

Here is an example, where the MatLab generated structure contain redundant data

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<polygon id="polygon1" nVertices="3">
<lines>
<segment n="1" x0=" 0.0" x1="966.0" y0=" 86.0" y1="142.0" />
<segment n="2" x0="966.0" x1="1983.0" y0="142.0" y1=" 0.0" />
<segment n="3" x0="1983.0" x1="0.0" y0="0.0" y1="86.0" />
</lines>
<xMax>1983.0</xMax>
<yMax>142.0</yMax>
</polygon>

[Kyo Sohma]

I was trying to use xml_parseany from a big file, and it doesnt work properly. For example,

<test>
<user id='1'>
<topic id='t1'>
<weight>60</weight>
</topic>
</user>
<user id='2'/>
<user id='3'>
<topic id='t3'>
<weight>20</weight>
</topic>
<topic id='t4'>
<weight>80</weight>
</topic>
</user>
<user id='4'/>
</test>

When this is parsed, user id 2 and 4 dont have topics, but when the struct is created these users have the topics from the last user that had topics.
In this case, user 2 has the same topics that user 1 has, and user 4 has the same topics that 4 has.

[Kyo Sohma]

correction: user 3 has the same topics that 4 has.

[Anna Kelbert]

Thanks a lot! Much more efficient than the alternative xml_io_tools (although open source would of course be nice). However, it completely messes up character arrays. If you create an array with a char() function that consists of e.g. four character strings (size 4 x 400), the corresponding XML output is nonsense. On the other hand, writing separate lines as items creates a problem for other software which reads my XML files. There should be an option to concatenate array elements together in the XML file, rather than writing them out as separate 'item' elements.

[Rick Crawford]

Is this supposed to work with cell arrays? I tried to use it with a cell array and it crashed.

[Richard]

I'm getting an error message for xml_load when running from command line:
"v = xml_load('Samoa.xml');
??? Attempt to execute SCRIPT xml_load as a function:
H:\mylib\xml\xml_toolbox\xml_load.p"

The file is in the current directory.

[Jesse Hopkins]

Does not handle XML files that have the same tag name repeated, since this uses the tag name as the field name for matlab structures. This tool appears to ignore all but the last tag of repeated tag names.

I prefer the output format of "XML parsing tools" (FX id 3074), which does handle this, however that one runs painstakingly slow and does not handle comments.

[Thomas Schreiter]

Nice idea. But no source code provided, which might be OK if the program weren't buggy:
In some cases, saving a matrix containing doubles and nan's leads to the error "NaN's cannot be converted to logicals."

[João]

Great! It was useful for me many times now.
Schroen, I think you are mistaken. The source code IS included.

[Thomas Schreiter]

Found one more annoying bug, that's why I downgraded my rating:
it produces invalid XML code in some cases (I have a structure containing some empty fields, the resulting XML file is ~500kB containing invalid XML code)

@Joao: There are M files included, but they contain only comments, no source code.

[Thomas Schreiter]

Regarding my last post. I found the troublemaker: saving a char with the value 0 leads to a missing closing tag:
Matlab: xml_save('foo.xml', char(0);
foo.XML: <?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- Written on 03-Feb-2010 10:59:59 using the XML Toolbox for Matlab -->
<root xml_tb_version="3.1" idx="1" type="char" size="1 1">

As you can see, the root tag is not closed.

[Neil]

Very disappointing closed source software. I do not recommend at all.

[Erfan]

you have forgot to ignore the white spaces in the XML file dude (in the xml_load function)
doesn't work when there are gaps in the xml file

[Thomas Marullo]

Great job! This is a wonderful set of tools.

[Marion Douglas]

As of Matlab 2010b, xml_toolbox is useless since p-file obfuscation has changed in matlab, requiring the original source m-file to make new p-files from. Any plans to release updated p-files?

[Marc Molinari]

I have changed jobs and a rewrite and update of the XML toolbox will be available as soon as I find time for these... Please check back or add a watch to receive a notification.
If you require urgent specialised changes or integration, please contact me at [e-mail].

[Navid Samavati]

Totally useful! Exactly what I was looking for! Thanks!

[Bhuvan]

Hi guys i have doubt is it possible to import back the xml file which download earlier to simmechanics model back to cad model in xml format using this tool bar.

Exactly it is SimMechanics Model to CAD Assembly in xml format & viceversa

pl. help me in this same

[Emil]

This is a great tool.. Whats the chance in getting an updated p-code?

[Emil]

 

[Andreas K.]

With Matlab R2007b everything works find, but with R2010b I got the following warning-message...
>Warning: The P-code file strsplit.p was generated prior to MATLAB version 7.5 (R2007b) and will not be
supported in a future release. Use pcode to regenerate strsplit.p using MATLAB R2007b or later.

I can't regenerate those files with R2010b. I don't know why...

[Charles Garfinkle]

Unable to interpret elements with line breaks between attribute values. Also failed to correctly parse an XML tree composed of nested elements all of the same name and attributes (though the specific values of those attributes differed between elements).

[Xiaolong]

 

[Xiaolong]

Unable to interprete special characters like > and < in the xml file.

[Ad Client]

buggy, no way to debug due to closed source.

[Joseph Areeda]

I'm running R2011b and can't try this because the p code is incompatible.

Are there any other options?

[Xiaolong]

I am switching to xmltools (also available from MATLAB Central).

This will be the last time I make my project dependent on a closed-source freeware.