How to use PHP DOMDocument saveHTML($node) without added whitespace?

Question

If I use saveHTML() without the optional DOMnode parameter it works as expected:

$html = '<html><body><div>123</div><div>456</div></body></html>';
$dom = new DOMDocument;
$dom->preserveWhiteSpace = true;
$dom->formatOutput = false;
$dom->loadHTML($html, LIBXML_HTML_NODEFDTD);
echo $dom->saveHTML();

<html><body><div>123</div><div>456</div></body></html>

But when I add a DOMNode parameter to output a subset of the document it seems to ignore the formatOutput property and adds a bunch of unwanted whitespace:

$body = $dom->getElementsByTagName('body')->item(0);
echo $dom->saveHTML($body);

<body>
<div>123</div>
<div>456</div>
</body>

What gives? Is this a bug? Is there a workaround?

Rain · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-06 07:37:57Z

5

Is this a bug?

Yes, it's a bug and it's reported here

Is there a workaround?

Stick with Nigel's solution for now

Did they fix it?

Yes, as of 7.3.0 alpha3 this is a fixed bug

Check it here

edited Jan 6, 2020 at 7:37

answered Nov 13, 2018 at 21:31

Rain

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Comments

user3942918 · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-14 05:31:27Z

4

If you know your document is going to be valid XML as well, you can use saveXML() instead...

$html = '<html><body><div>123</div><div>456</div></body></html>';
$dom = new DOMDocument;
$dom->preserveWhiteSpace = true;
$dom->formatOutput = false;
$dom->loadHTML($html, LIBXML_HTML_NODEFDTD);
$body = $dom->getElementsByTagName('body')->item(0);
echo $dom->saveXML($body);

which gives...

<body><div>123</div><div>456</div></body>

edited Nov 14, 2018 at 5:31

user3942918

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answered Nov 13, 2018 at 19:50

Nigel Ren

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1 Comment

You Old Fool Over a year ago

Looking deeper into this, saveXML() respects the formatOutput property with or without the argument, while saveHTML() only works without argument. Seems like a bug to me. Thanks for the workaround!

Patrick Q · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-13 19:43:06Z

2

Well, it's a pretty ugly workaround, but it gets the job done:

$html = '<html><body><div>123</div><div>456</div></body></html>';
$dom = new DOMDocument;
$dom->preserveWhiteSpace = true;
$dom->formatOutput = false;
$dom->loadHTML($html, LIBXML_HTML_NODEFDTD);
$dom->loadHTML(str_replace("\n", "", $dom->saveHTML($dom->getElementsByTagName('body')->item(0))), LIBXML_HTML_NOIMPLIED | LIBXML_HTML_NODEFDTD);

echo $dom->saveHTML();

DEMO

Since saveHTML() returns the string, pass the Node to that, then replace the line breaks, then pass that to loadHTML().

answered Nov 13, 2018 at 19:43

Patrick Q

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4 Comments

You Old Fool Over a year ago

hehe - that is ugly but thanks. at the moment I'm doing this: str_replace(PHP_EOL, '', $dom->saveHTML($dom->getElementsByTagName('body')->item(0))); which I think yields the same result with a bit less effort. I'm still looking for a better method but appreciate your suggestion.

Patrick Q Over a year ago

Okay. In the future, if you already have a solution, but just don't like it, you should include that in your question.

You Old Fool Over a year ago

Agreed Patrick, I actually posted the question before I came up with that workaround and was in the process of editing my question to make that clear when you posted this. That said, I've upvoted your answer and I think it's useful and you probably wouldn't have written it if I'd posted my workaround to begin with - alls well that ends well.

Patrick Q Over a year ago

Yup. I like Nigel's better anyway :)

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