An XML package for the S language

Last Release: 3.96-1 (Wed Mar 27 11:27:38 PDT 2013)

Note: In version 2.4-0, there is a new approach to garbage collecting internal/C-level nodes and documents returned from, e.g. xmlParse(), getNodeSet(), xpathApply(), newXMLNode(). This endeavors to avoid freeing a document when there is an R variable refering to one of its nodes, and to garbage collect a document when all nodes are unreferenced. This has been tested and appears to work, however there may be some cases that we have not encountered. So if you encounter problems, please send me email.

This package provides facilities for the S language to

parse XML files, URLs and strings, using either the DOM (Document Object Model)/tree-based approach, or the event-driven SAX (Simple API for XML) mechanism;
parse HTML documents,
perform XPath queries on a document,
generate XML content to buffers, files, URLs, and internal XML trees;
read DTDs as S objects.

It is an interface to the libxml2 library. It can be combined with the RCurl package for parsing documents that require more involved HTTP requests to fetch the document.

Download

The source for the S package can be downloaded as XML_3.96-1.tar.gz.

There is also a Windows version available from the Omegahat repository. Use

install.packages("XML", repos = "http://www.omegahat.org/R")

Documentation

Best practices for using the XML package PDF version. A short overview: HTML, PDF A brief introduction to parsing XML in R: HTML, PDF A reasonably detailed overview of the package and what we might use XML for. A manual in and a quick guide to the package (PDF). A short overview of the package. Brief and incomplete Notes on generating XML within S FAQ for the package. Changes to the packages (by release).: PDF version.
A short overview: HTML, PDF A brief introduction to parsing XML in R: HTML, PDF A reasonably detailed overview of the package and what we might use XML for. A manual in and a quick guide to the package (PDF). A short overview of the package. Brief and incomplete Notes on generating XML within S FAQ for the package. Changes to the packages (by release).
A brief introduction to parsing XML in R: HTML, PDF A reasonably detailed overview of the package and what we might use XML for. A manual in and a quick guide to the package (PDF). A short overview of the package. Brief and incomplete Notes on generating XML within S FAQ for the package. Changes to the packages (by release).
A reasonably detailed overview of the package and what we might use XML for.
A manual in and a quick guide to the package (PDF).
A short overview of the package.
Brief and incomplete Notes on generating XML within S
FAQ for the package.
Changes to the packages (by release).

Examples of Reading Generic XML files

XML form of plist (property list) files (e.g. property lists on OS X, old iTunes databases) keyValueDB.R library(XML) source(url("http://www.omegahat.org/RSXML/keyValueDB.R")) o = readKeyValueDB("http://www.omegahat.org/RSXML/plist.xml") XML "solr" files that are similar to JSON and name-value pairs with nodes of the form A string 103 1000012310303 true 2011-02-10T11:29:03Z ]]> solrDocs.R library(XML) source(url("http://www.omegahat.org/RSXML/solrDocs.R")) o = readSolrDoc("http://www.omegahat.org/RSXML/solr.xml"): keyValueDB.R

library(XML) source(url("http://www.omegahat.org/RSXML/keyValueDB.R")) o = readKeyValueDB("http://www.omegahat.org/RSXML/plist.xml")
XML "solr" files that are similar to JSON and name-value pairs with nodes of the form A string 103 1000012310303 true 2011-02-10T11:29:03Z ]]> solrDocs.R library(XML) source(url("http://www.omegahat.org/RSXML/solrDocs.R")) o = readSolrDoc("http://www.omegahat.org/RSXML/solr.xml"): solrDocs.R

library(XML) source(url("http://www.omegahat.org/RSXML/solrDocs.R")) o = readSolrDoc("http://www.omegahat.org/RSXML/solr.xml")

Duncan Temple Lang <duncan@wald.ucdavis.edu>

Last modified: Sun Dec 25 09:52:10 PST 2011