Golang : Read XML elements data with xml.CharData example

For this post, we will learn how to read inner XML elements data with xml.CharData type. This tutorial will show you how to handle xml.CharData variable as an array of bytes and then to convert to a string for display.

Here we go!

 package main

 import (
 "encoding/xml"
 "fmt"
 "strings"
 )

 var XMLdata = `<urlset>
  <url>
 <loc>http://www.example.com/xml-element-golang</loc>
 <lastmod>2015-06-14</lastmod>
 <changefreq>daily</changefreq>
 <priority>0.5</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
 <loc>http://www.example.com/extract-element-by-for-loop</loc>
 <lastmod>2015-06-14</lastmod>
 <changefreq>daily</changefreq>
 <priority>0.5</priority>
  </url>
  <urlset>`

 // ignore <loc>, only use chardata because DecodeElement will work on <loc>

 type XMLQuery struct {
 Loc string `xml:",chardata"`
 }

 var l XMLQuery

 func main() {

 // example on handling XML chardata(string)
 decoder := xml.NewDecoder(strings.NewReader(string(XMLdata)))

 for {

 // err is ignore here. IF you are reading from a XML file
 // do not ignore err and also check for io.EOF
 token, _ := decoder.Token()

 if token == nil {
 break
 }

 switch Element := token.(type) {
 case xml.StartElement:
 if Element.Name.Local == "loc" {
 fmt.Println("Element name is : ", Element.Name.Local)

 err := decoder.DecodeElement(&l, &Element)
 if err != nil {
 fmt.Println(err)
 }

 fmt.Println("Element value is : ", l.Loc)
 }

 // print out the element data
 // convert to []byte slice and cast to string type

 case xml.CharData:
 str := string([]byte(Element))
 fmt.Println(str)
 }
 }
 }

Sample output :

Element name is : loc

Element value is : http://www.example.com/xml-element-golang

2015-06-14

daily

0.5

Element name is : loc

Element value is : http://www.example.com/extract-element-by-for-loop

2015-06-14

daily

0.5

Happy coding!

References :

https://www.socketloop.com/references/golang-encoding-xml-chardata-type-examples

https://www.socketloop.com/tutorials/golang-search-and-extract-certain-xml-data-example