Golang - How to extract part of an XML file as a string?

Question

My XML looks something like this:

<a>
  <b>
    <c>
      <d>TEXT</d>
   </c>
  </b>
</a>

I know how to separate this code via the xml.Unmarshal function, but is there any way to perform the Unmarshal action only to a certain depth? For example, if I wanted to get a string that says "TEXT" and pass that into another function? I tried giving a child charset object, but it still tries to parse the rest of the XML...

Is there any specific reason why you wouldn't use xml.Unmarshal,and use the string in the unmarshalled struct? — Dean Elbaz
– Dean Elbaz, Commented Dec 17, 2014 at 14:19
@DeanElbaz, thanks for the quick response! I am new at using Go so I may be missing something quite obvious, but when I created a string in the unmarshalled struct, it only picked up the extra characters around the child XML objects (like line breaks), but it seemed to ignore the other objects inside XML tags. — IanZG
– IanZG, Commented Dec 17, 2014 at 14:24

Alper · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-18 08:30:09Z

10

I think this is what you are asking (consider your comment as well).

package main

import (
    "encoding/xml"
    "fmt"
)

func main() {
    type Result struct {
        Value  string `xml:"b>c>d"`
    }
    v := Result{"none"}

    data := `
        <a>
            <b>
                <c>
                    <d>TEXT</d>             
                </c>
            </b>
        </a>
    `
    err := xml.Unmarshal([]byte(data), &v)
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Printf("error: %v", err)
        return
    }

    fmt.Printf("Value: %v\n", v.Value)
}

Output:

Value: TEXT

UPDATE: after lanZG's comment

func main() {
    type InnerResult struct {
        Value string `xml:",innerxml"`
    }

    type Result struct {
        B InnerResult `xml:"b"`
    }
    v := Result{InnerResult{"none"}}

    data := `
        <a>
            <b>
                <c>
                    <d>TEXT</d>             
                </c>
            </b>
        </a>
    `
    err := xml.Unmarshal([]byte(data), &v)
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Printf("error: %v", err)
        return
    }

    fmt.Printf("Value: %v\n", v.B.Value)
}

Output:

Value: 
                <c>
                    <d>TEXT</d>             
                </c>

edited Dec 18, 2014 at 8:30

answered Dec 17, 2014 at 14:57

Alper

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2 Comments

IanZG Over a year ago

Thank you for your response! The question I asked is not that easy to understand, partly because I didn't do a great job explaining the issue. In a nutshell, is there any way we can get the output to say "Value: <c><d>TEXT</d></c>

Alper Over a year ago

@lanZG, I updated the answer, I am not sure but it seems new one might work for you.

Dean Elbaz · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-17 14:36:24Z

2

You can use nested xml tags to make it easier with xml.Unmarshal

here is how it would work: http://play.golang.org/p/XtCX7Dh45u

answered Dec 17, 2014 at 14:36

Dean Elbaz

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