---
name: "XML::TokeParser"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "libxml-tokeparser-perl"
version: "0.05-6"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/XML::TokeParser"
---

# XML::TokeParser(3pm)

Simplified interface to XML::Parser

## NAME

XML::TokeParser - Simplified interface to XML::Parser

## SYNOPSIS

```
    use XML::TokeParser;
                                                                    #
    #parse from file
    my $p = XML::TokeParser->new('file.xml')
                                                                    #
    #parse from open handle
    open IN, 'file.xml' or die $!;
    my $p = XML::TokeParser->new( \*IN, Noempty => 1 );
                                                                    #
    #parse literal text
    my $text = '<tag xmlns="http://www.omsdev.com">text</tag>';
    my $p    = XML::TokeParser->new( \$text, Namespaces => 1 );
                                                                    #
    #read next token
    my $token = $p->get_token();
                                                                    #
    #skip to <title> and read text
    $p->get_tag('title');
    $p->get_text();
                                                                    #
    #read text of next <para>, ignoring any internal markup
    $p->get_tag('para');
    $p->get_trimmed_text('/para');
                                                                    #
    #process <para> if interesting text
    $t = $p->get_tag('para');
    $p->begin_saving($t);
    if ( $p->get_trimmed_text('/para') =~ /interesting stuff/ ) {
        $p->restore_saved();
        process_para($p);
    }
```

## DESCRIPTION

XML::TokeParser provides a procedural ("pull mode") interface to XML::Parser in much the same way that Gisle Aas' HTML::TokeParser provides a procedural interface to HTML::Parser.  XML::TokeParser splits its XML input up into "tokens," each corresponding to an XML::Parser event.

A token is a **bless'd** reference to an array whose first element is an event-type  string and whose last element is the literal text of the XML input that  generated the event, with intermediate elements varying according to the  event type.

Each token is an *object* of type XML::TokeParser::Token. Read  "XML::TokeParser::Token" to learn what methods are available for inspecting the token, and retrieving data from it.

## METHODS

- $p = XML::TokeParser-\>new($input, \[options\])

  Creates a new parser, specifying the input source and any options.  If  `$input` is a string, it is the name of the file to parse.  If `$input` is a  reference to a string, that string is the actual text to parse.  If `$input`  is a reference to a typeglob or an IO::Handle object corresponding to an  open file or socket, the text read from the handle will be parsed.

  Options are name=\>value pairs and can be any of the following:

  - Namespaces

    If set to a true value, namespace processing is enabled.

  - ParseParamEnt

    This option is passed on to the underlying XML::Parser object; see that  module's documentation for details.

  - Noempty

    If set to a true value, text tokens consisting of only whitespace (such as  those created by indentation and line breaks in between tags) will be  ignored.

  - Latin

    If set to a true value, all text other than the literal text elements of  tokens will be translated into the ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) character encoding  rather than the normal UTF-8 encoding.

  - Catalog

    The value is the URI of a catalog file used to resolve PUBLIC and SYSTEM  identifiers.  See XML::Catalog for details.

- $token = $p-\>**get\_token()**

  Returns the next token, as an array reference, from the input.  Returns  undef if there are no remaining tokens.

- $p-\>unget\_token($token,...)

  Pushes tokens back so they will be re-read.  Useful if you've read one or  more tokens too far.  Correctly handles "partial" tokens returned by  **get\_tag()**.

- $token = $p-\>get\_tag( \[$token\] )

  If no argument given, skips tokens until the next start tag or end tag  token. If an argument is given, skips tokens until the start tag or end tag  (if the argument begins with '/') for the named element.  The returned  token does not include an event type code; its first element is the element  name, prefixed by a '/' if the token is for an end tag.

- $text = $p-\>get\_text( \[$token\] )

  If no argument given, returns the text at the current position, or an empty  string if the next token is not a 'T' token.  If an argument is given,  gathers up all text between the current position and the specified start or  end tag, stripping out any intervening tags (much like the way a typical  Web browser deals with unknown tags).

- $text = $p-\>get\_trimmed\_text( \[$token\] )

  Like **get\_text()**, but deletes any leading or trailing whitespaces and  collapses multiple whitespace (including newlines) into single spaces.

- $p-\>begin\_saving( \[$token\] )

  Causes subsequent calls to **get\_token()**, **get\_tag()**, **get\_text()**, and  **get\_trimmed\_text()** to save the returned tokens.  In conjunction with  **restore\_saved()**, allows you to "back up" within a token stream.  If an  argument is supplied, it is placed at the beginning of the list of saved  tokens (useful because you often won't know you want to begin saving until  you've already read the first token you want saved).

- $p-\>**restore\_saved()**

  Pushes all the tokens saved by **begin\_saving()** back onto the token stream.   Stops saving tokens.  To cancel saving without backing up, call  **begin\_saving()** and **restore\_saved()** in succession.

### XML::TokeParser::Token

A token is a blessed array reference, that you acquire using `"$p->get_token"` or `"$p->get_tag"`, and that might look like:

```
    ["S",  $tag, $attr, $attrseq, $raw]
    ["E",  $tag, $raw]
    ["T",  $text, $raw]
    ["C",  $text, $raw]
    ["PI", $target, $data, $raw]
```

If you don't like remembering array indices (you're a real programmer), you may access the attributes of a token like:

`"$t->tag"`, `"$t->attr"`, `"$t->attrseq"`, `"$t->raw"`, `"$t->text"`, `"$t->target"`, `"$t->data"`.

**\*\*\*\*Please note that this may change in the future,** **where as there will be 4 token types, XML::TokeParser::Token::StartTag ....**

What kind of token is it?

To find out, inspect your token using any of these is\_\* methods (1 == true, 0 == false, d'oh):

- is\_text

  - is\_comment

  - is\_pi which is short for is\_process\_instruction

  - is\_start\_tag

  - is\_end\_tag

  - is\_tag

  What's that token made of? To retrieve data from your token, use any of the following methods, depending on the kind of token you have:

- target

  only for process instructions

- data

  only for process instructions

- raw

  for all tokens

- attr

  only for start tags, returns a hashref ( `"print "#link ", ""$t->attr""->{href}"` ).

- my $attrseq = $t-\>attrseq

  only for start tags, returns an array ref of the keys found in `"$t->attr"` in the order they originally appeared in.

- my $tagname = $t-\>tag

  only for tags ( `"print "opening ", ""$t->tag"" if ""$t->is_start_tag"` ).

- my $text = $token-\>text

  only for tokens of type text and comment

Here's more detailed info about the tokens.

- Start tag

  The token has five elements: 'S', the element's name, a reference to a hash  of attribute values keyed by attribute names, a reference to an array of  attribute names in the order in which they appeared in the tag, and the  literal text.

- End tag

  The token has three elements: 'E', the element's name, and the literal text.

- Character data (text)

  The token has three elements: 'T', the parsed text, and the literal text.   All contiguous runs of text are gathered into single tokens; there will  never be two 'T' tokens in a row.

- Comment

  The token has three elements: 'C', the parsed text of the comment, and the  literal text.

- Processing instruction

  The token has four elements: 'PI', the target, the data, and the literal  text.

The literal text includes any markup delimiters (pointy brackets,  \<!\[CDATA\[, etc.), entity references, and numeric character references and  is in the XML document's original character encoding.  All other text is in  UTF-8 (unless the Latin option is set, in which case it's in ISO-8859-1)  regardless of the original encoding, and all entity and character  references are expanded.

If the Namespaces option is set, element and attribute names are prefixed  by their (possibly empty) namespace URIs enclosed in curly brackets and  xmlns:\* attributes do not appear in 'S' tokens.

## DIFFERENCES FROM HTML::TokeParser

Uses a true XML parser rather than a modified HTML parser.

Text and comment tokens include extracted text as well as literal text.

PI tokens include target and data as well as literal text.

No tokens for declarations.

No "textify" hash.

unget\_token correctly handles partial tokens returned by **get\_tag()**.

**begin\_saving()** and **restore\_saved()**

## EXAMPLES

Example:

```
    use XML::TokeParser;
    use strict;
                                                                               #
    my $text = '<tag foo="bar" foy="floy"> some text <!--comment--></tag>';
    my $p    = XML::TokeParser->new( \$text );
                                                                               #
    print $/;
                                                                               #
    while( defined( my $t = $p->get_token() ) ){
        local $\="\n";
        print '         raw = ', $t->raw;
                                                                               #
        if( $t->tag ){
            print '         tag = ', $t->tag;
                                                                               #
            if( $t->is_start_tag ) {
                print '        attr = ', join ',', %{$t->attr};
                print '     attrseq = ', join ',', @{$t->attrseq};
            }
                                                                               #
            print 'is_tag       ', $t->is_tag;
            print 'is_start_tag ', $t->is_start_tag;
            print 'is_end_tag   ', $t->is_end_tag;
        }
        elsif( $t->is_pi ){
            print '      target = ', $t->target;
            print '        data = ', $t->data;
            print 'is_pi        ', $t->is_pi;
        }
        else {
            print '        text = ', $t->text;
            print 'is_text      ', $t->is_text;
            print 'is_comment   ', $t->is_comment;
        }
                                                                               #
        print $/;
    }
    __END__
```

Output:

```
             raw = <tag foo="bar" foy="floy">
             tag = tag
            attr = foo,bar,foy,floy
         attrseq = foo,foy
    is_tag       1
    is_start_tag 1
    is_end_tag   0
             raw =  some text
            text =  some text
    is_text      1
    is_comment   0
             raw = <!--comment-->
            text = comment
    is_text      0
    is_comment   1
             raw = </tag>
             tag = tag
    is_tag       1
    is_start_tag 0
    is_end_tag   1
```

## BUGS

To report bugs, go to \<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=XML-TokeParser\> or send mail to \<bug-XML-Tokeparser@rt.cpan.org\>

## AUTHOR

Copyright (c) 2003 D.H. aka PodMaster (current maintainer). Copyright (c) 2001 Eric Bohlman (original author).

All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. If you don't know what this means, visit \<http://perl.com/\> or \<http://cpan.org/\>.

## SEE ALSO

HTML::TokeParser, XML::Parser, XML::Catalog, XML::Smart, XML::Twig.
