Free XML Formatting tool [closed]

Question

Is there a free XML formatting (indent) tool available where I can past an XML string and have it formatted so I can read the XML document correctly?

Thanks

Edit ~ I am using XML Notepad on Windows XP.

Answer 1

Try http://prettydiff.com/ The algorithm is similar to HTML Tidy, but is more complete. The program is written entirely in JavaScript, so you don't have to install anything.

Answer 2

Use the following:

xmllint --format

Answer 3

You can open the XML file in any Visual Studio Express product and the press Ctrl+A, Ctrl+K, Ctrl+F to get it nicely formatted.

Hey, it's free and it's a tool, so it fits the question. :-)

Answer 4

Advanced Conventional Formatting [Update]

XMLSpectrum is an open source syntax-highlighter. Supporting XML - but with special features for XSLT 2.0, XSD 1.1 and XPath 2.0. I'm mentioning this here because it also has special formatting capabilities for XML: it vertically aligns attributes and their contents as well as elements - to enhance XML readability.

The output HTML is suitable for reviewing in a browser or if the XML needs further editing it can be copied and pasted into an XML editor of your choice

Because xmlspectrum.xsl uses its own XML text parser, all content such as entity references and CDATA sections are preserved - as in an editor.

Note on usage: this is just an XSLT 2.0 stylesheet so you would need to enclose the required command-line (samples provided) in a small script so you could automatically transform the XML source.

Virtual Formatting

XMLQuire is a free XML editor that has special formatting capabilities - it formats XML properly, including multi-line attributes, attribute-values, word-wrap indentation and even XML comments.

All XML indentation is done without inserting tabs or spaces, ensuring the integrity of the XML is maintained. For versions of Windows later than XP, no installation is needed, its just a 3MB .exe file.

If you need to print out the formatted XML there are special options within the print-preview, such as line-numbering that follows the indentation. If you need to copy the formatted XML to a word processor as rich text, that's available too.

[Disclosure: I maintain both XMLQuire and XMLSpectrum as 'home projects']

Answer 5

I believe that Notepad++ has this feature.

Edit (for newer versions)
Install the "XML Tools" plugin (Menu Plugins, Plugin Manager)
Then run: Menu Plugins, Xml Tools, Pretty Print (XML only - with line breaks)

Original answer (for older versions of Notepad++)

Notepad++ menu: TextFX -> HTML Tidy -> Tidy: Reindent XML

This feature however wraps XMLs and that makes it look 'unclean'. To have no wrap,

• open C:\Program Files\Notepad++\plugins\Config\tidy\TIDYCFG.INI,
• find the entry [Tidy: Reindent XML] and add wrap:0 so that it looks like this:

[Tidy: Reindent XML] 
input-xml: yes 
indent:yes 
wrap:0 

Answer 6

Not directly an answer, but good to know nevertheless: After indenting, please make sure that the parser(s) and application(s) which will subsequently process the formatted XML will not yield different results. White space is often significant in XML and most conforming parsers bubble it up to the application.