StAX XML formatting in Java

Question

Is it possible using StAX (specifically woodstox) to format the output xml with newlines and tabs, i.e. in the form:

<element1>
  <element2>
   someData
  </element2>
</element1>

instead of:

<element1><element2>someData</element2></element1>

If this is not possible in woodstox, is there any other lightweight libs that can do this?

Answer 1

if you are using XMLEventWriter, then an easier way to do that is:

XMLOutputFactory outputFactory = XMLOutputFactory.newInstance();
        XMLEventWriter writer = outputFactory.createXMLEventWriter(w);
        XMLEventFactory eventFactory = XMLEventFactory.newInstance();
        Characters newLine = eventFactory.createCharacters("\n"); 
        writer.add(startRoot);
        writer.add(newLine);

Answer 2

There is com.sun.xml.txw2.output.IndentingXMLStreamWriter

XMLOutputFactory xmlof = XMLOutputFactory.newInstance();
XMLStreamWriter writer = new IndentingXMLStreamWriter(xmlof.createXMLStreamWriter(out));

Answer 3

If you're using the StAX cursor API, you can indent the output by wrapping the XMLStreamWriter in an indenting proxy. I tried this in my own project and it worked nicely.

Answer 4

How about StaxMate:

http://www.cowtowncoder.com/blog/archives/2006/09/entry_21.html

Works well with Woodstox, fast, low-memory usage (no in-memory tree built), and indents like so:

---

SMOutputFactory sf = new SMOutputFactory(XMLOutputFactory.newInstance());
SMOutputDocument doc = sf.createOutputDocument(new FileOutputStream("output.xml"));
doc.setIndentation("\n ", 1, 2); // for unix linefeed, 2 spaces per level    
// write doc like:    
SMOutputElement root = doc.addElement("element1");    
root.addElement("element2").addCharacters("someData");    
doc.closeRoot(); // important, flushes, closes output

---