Regex - Unformat XML

Question

I am trying to unformat a XML to single line. (Using JAVA)

I trying to use following regex to replace.

input.replaceAll(">\\s+", ">").replaceAll("\\s+<", "<");

However, it also will remove the space in front and behind element. Which is unexpected.

For example:

Scenario 01

Before: <AAA>{space}{space}{space}</AAA>

After: <AAA></AAA>

Scenario 02

Before: <AAA>{space}{space}123{space}{space}</AAA>

After: <AAA>123</AAA>

Scenario 03

Before: <AAA>{space}A{space}B{space}C{space}</AAA>

After: <AAA>A{space}B{space}C</AAA>

Is there any way to unformat and avoid scenario above?

It's not related. OP is asking to reformat XML by replacing line breaks, not parse anything. This is very possible with regex. — TreffnonX
– TreffnonX, Commented Oct 1, 2020 at 7:00
Processing XML using regular expressions is always dangerous. Much better to use an XML parser, every time. — Michael Kay
– Michael Kay, Commented Oct 1, 2020 at 8:27

Michael Kay · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-01 08:25:38Z

1

A Saxon solution:

Processor p = new Processor(false);
DocumentBuilder db = p.newDocumentBuilder();
db.setWhitespaceStrippingPolicy(WhitespaceStrippingPolicy.ALL);
XdmNode doc = db.build(new File(...));
Serializer s = p.newSerializer(new File(...));
s.serialize(doc.asSource());

This gives you quite a lot of control over the format of the output by setting properties on the Serializer object.

answered Oct 1, 2020 at 8:25

Michael Kay

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TreffnonX · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-01 06:52:40Z

0

This will only replace vertical whitespaces following tag ends and preceding tag starts, e.g. "\n", "\r" or combinations, and others.

input.replaceAll(">\\v+", ">").replaceAll("\\v+<", "<");

Excerpt from https://www.regular-expressions.info/shorthand.html says:

\v matches “vertical whitespace”, which includes all characters treated as line breaks in the Unicode standard. It is the same as [\n\cK\f\r\x85\x{2028}\x{2029}].

answered Oct 1, 2020 at 6:52

TreffnonX

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