ColdFusion Development

ColdFusion Tutorial: Reading XML Documents

Posted At : November 15, 2007 3:12 PM | Posted By : Scott Bennett
Related Categories: ColdFusion,XML

There are many, many uses for XML, and if you use ColdFusion to consume web services, or create data integration processes, then chances are, you will need work with XML. As of ColdFusion MX there are several tags and functions that make working with XML a snap. In this tutorial I am going to focus on teaching you how to pull the information you need out of XML documents.

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Comments (33) | 36923 Views

Related Blog Entries

Looping Through XML Nodes with CFLoop and XMLSearch (December 26, 2007)
ColdFusion Tutorial: Generating XML Documents (November 20, 2007)

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Thanks for the post. I'm having a lot of trouble reading XML files. You would think it would be easy but for some reason nothing seams to work. Not the adobe pdf on reading XML coldfusion, not easyCFM and I'm having trouble with yours.

Simply copying and pasting works!!! Woo Hoo. The first copy and paste that works.
(I'm wondering do DTD's affect reading XML?)

So now, I place your savecontent into an external xml file called books.xml.

I call it

<cfhttp url="http://127.0.0.1/test/xml/books.xml"; method="GET">
<cfset xmlfile = xmlparse(cfhttp.filecontent)>
<cfset MyXMLDoc = xmlParse(xmlfile)>

<cfdump var="#MyXMLDoc#">

and it works. However, when I copy and paste the next part nothing is displayed.

<cfset MyXMLDoc = xmlParse(XMLFile)>

<cfset BookNodes = xmlSearch(MyXMLDoc,'/books/book')>

<cfoutput>
<cfloop from="1" to="#arraylen(BookNodes)#" index="i">

<cfset BookXML = xmlparse(BookNodes[i])>
ISBN: #BookXML.book.isbn.xmltext# 
Title: #BookXML.book.title.xmlText# 
Author: #BookXML.book.author.xmlText# 
</cfloop>
</cfoutput>

The author code displays well. What's up?

# Posted By another cowardly anon | 11/22/07 4:45 PM

If you are going to get your XML file via http you would do it like this:

<cfhttp url="http://127.0.0.1/test/xml/books.xml"; method="GET">
<cfset MyXMLDoc = xmlParse(cfhttp.filecontent)>

<cfset BookNodes = xmlSearch(MyXMLDoc,'/books/book')>

<cfoutput>
<cfloop from="1" to="#arraylen(BookNodes)#" index="i">
<cfset BookXML = xmlparse(BookNodes[i])>
ISBN: #BookXML.book.isbn.xmltext# 
Title: #BookXML.book.title.xmlText# 
Author: #BookXML.book.author.xmlText# 
</cfloop>
</cfoutput>

Also you need to keep in mind that XMLSearch is case sensitive. So if you changed the case of any of the XML that I provided then the XMLSearch will return no results. If you changed the <books> node to <BOOKS> for example, then you will need to make sure that this line:

<cfset BookNodes = xmlSearch(MyXMLDoc,'/books/book')>

is changed to

<cfset BookNodes = xmlSearch(MyXMLDoc,'/BOOKS/book')>

# Posted By Scott Bennett | 11/23/07 1:25 PM

Sorry for taking so long to respond and thanks for the answer unfortunately I'm missing something. I really don't know why I'm having trouble this seems so easy.

Things still don't work.

This time the error is the ";" that's in
<cfhttp url="http://127.0.0.1/test/xml/books.xml";; method="GET">

(Is that really supposed to be there?)

Here's the XML page: books.xml

<xml version="1.0">
<books>
<book>
<isbn>0321330110</isbn>
<title>Macromedia ColdFusion MX 7 Certified Developer Study Guide</title>
<author>Ben Forta</author>
</book>
<book>
<isbn>0596004206</isbn>
<title>Learning XML, Second Edition</title>
<author>Erik Ray</author>
</book>
<book>
<isbn>0782140297</isbn>
<title>Coldfusion MX Developer's Handbook</title>
<author>Raymond Camden</author>
</book>
</books>
</xml>

and the CFM page you know:

<cfhttp url="http://127.0.0.1/test/xml/books.xml";; method="GET">
<cfset MyXMLDoc = xmlParse(cfhttp.filecontent)>

<cfset BookNodes = xmlSearch(MyXMLDoc,'/books/book')>

<cfoutput>
<cfloop from="1" to="#arraylen(BookNodes)#" index="i">
<cfset BookXML = xmlparse(BookNodes[i])>
ISBN: #BookXML.book.isbn.xmltext# 
Title: #BookXML.book.title.xmlText# 
Author: #BookXML.book.author.xmlText# 
</cfloop>
</cfoutput>

It doesn't seem complicated so I'm really frustrated by this not working.

# Posted By another cowardly anon | 12/13/07 6:27 PM

the semi-colon should not be there, that is showing up because of a glitch in the blog.cfc comments functionality, I should have made a note of that.

# Posted By Scott Bennett | 12/14/07 12:19 PM

Nice article. However, it seems we both seem to have demonstrated on the same subject with a similar example.
http://www.anujgakhar.com/2007/10/31/using-xpath-w...

This is my version.

# Posted By Anuj Gakhar | 12/28/07 7:36 AM

@Anuj,

If you are trying to imply that I got the idea to write this article from reading yours, then I assure you that is not the case. I have never seen your article before today. I chose to use XML related to books because I was writing this article to be published on http://tutorial18.learncf.com/, and their requirements are that all examples are to be written using the "cfbookclub" example database that comes with ColdFusion. I knew I was going to be writing a second article as well (http://tutorial20.learncf.com/) that would pull from the cfbookclub database to generate an xml document, and I wanted there to be a little consistency between the two articles.

Beyond the use of a book related XML structure and the general topic of using xPath expressions, our articles differ quite a bit in the intended audience. Mine is geared as more of an introduction to xPath expressions and how to use them to parse the information you need from an XML document and it hints at the end that there is much more you can do with xPath expressions.

Your article seems to be geared more toward developers who already know a little bit about xPath expressions as it doesn't really explain what xPath expressions are and you expect your audience to be able to figure it out for themselves by reading the code. Your article shows more advanced ways to use xPath, which I must admit I found quite interesting because I had never thought of using the count() or sum() functions the way you have demonstrated there. Pretty neat stuff. Thanks.

# Posted By Scott Bennett | 12/28/07 12:35 PM

Scott,

You got me wrong. I was not trying to say that your article had aanything
to do with mine, all I was saying is we ended up writing on a similar subject.

And we are all sharing knowledge so why bother anyways.

Cheers. keep up the good work.

# Posted By Anuj Gakhar | 12/28/07 3:26 PM

Ok that's cool, sorry for the misunderstanding. =)

# Posted By Scott Bennett | 12/28/07 4:45 PM

Have you used the lower-case() along with contains() to make the contains not case sensitive? When i try it it says the lower-case() is not found.

something like

xmlSearch(myxml,"//child[contains(.,lower-case('searchString'))]")

returns an error

Could not find function: lower-case

any suggestions are appreciated. Is this not available in the java behind xpath searches in cf?

# Posted By Matthew | 4/10/08 2:56 PM

From my testing I am concluding that the lower-case() function was not implemented in the ColdFusion xPath implementation. I tried to find some documentation to verify that but can't find anything. I may dig a little deeper later if I have time but for now I would say it is just not implemented.

# Posted By Scott Bennett | 4/22/08 7:09 PM

you can check by doing this
function-exists('lower-case') in an xpath expression.

# Posted By Anuj Gakhar | 4/22/08 7:15 PM

@Anuj,

just tired that and I get a similar error to the one that Matthew got for the lower-case function:

Could not find function: function-exists

# Posted By Scott Bennett | 4/22/08 8:35 PM

Sorry, my bad.

It should be function-available.

e.g.
<cfset isFunction = XmlSearch(myXml, function-available(lower-case)) />

# Posted By Anuj Gakhar | 4/23/08 9:05 AM

it seems i cant put double quotes in code here.....
read the last comment on this blog post here
http://www.anujgakhar.com/2007/10/31/using-xpath-w...

# Posted By Anuj Gakhar | 4/23/08 9:07 AM

function-available worked, and it returned a 'No' so obviously that means lower-case was not implemented in ColdFusion xPath implementation. Thanks for that tip Anuj!

# Posted By Scott Bennett | 4/23/08 1:45 PM

Hi Scott, I have this situation:
<cfsavecontent variable="XMLFile">
<ProductsComparison xmlns="http://com.etilize.spexlive";>" target="_blank">http://com.etilize.spexlive";>;
<products>
<productSummary id="11964813">
<category parId="10502" name="Mailers & Envelopes" id="10500"/>
<manufacturer sku="75050" name="MeadWestvaco" id="1020728"/>
<descriptions>
<pd t="2">MeadWestvaco Plain Business Size Envelopes</pd>
<pd t="3">Business Envelope - #104.12" x 9.5" - Self-sealing - 50 Pack - White</pd>
<pd t="1">MeadWestvaco Plain Business Size Envelopes - #10 (4.12" x 9.5") - Self-sealing - 50 Pack - White</pd>
</descriptions>
</productSummary>
<productSummary id="11967515">
<category parId="10502" name="Mailers & Envelopes" id="10500"/>
<manufacturer sku="11118" name="Quality Park Products" id="102086"/>
<descriptions>
<pd t="2">Quality Park Redi-Seal Business Envelopes</pd>
<pd t="3">Business Envelope - #104.12" x 9.5" - 24lb - Self-sealing - 500 Pack - White</pd>
<pd t="1">Quality Park Redi-Seal Business Envelopes - #10 (4.12" x 9.5") - 24lb - Self-sealing - 500 Pack - White</pd>
</descriptions>
</productSummary>
</products>
</ProductsComparison>
</cfsavecontent>
<cfset MyXMLDoc = xmlParse(XMLFile)>

<cfset ProductNodes = xmlSearch(MyXMLDoc,'/ProductsComparison/products/productSummary')>
<cfset AttributeNodes = xmlSearch(MyXMLDoc,'/ProductsComparison/dataSheetComparison/attributeGroup/attribute')>

<cfoutput>#arraylen(ProductNodes)#xxx#arraylen(AttributeNodes)#yyy
<cfloop from="1" to="#arraylen(ProductNodes)#" index="i">

<cfset ProductXML = xmlparse(ProductNodes[i])>
PD: #ProductXML.productSummary.descriptions.pd.xmlText# 
</cfloop>
</cfoutput>

That by itself won't work and I figured out why, because by root has this xmlns="http://com.etilize.spexlive"; on it. How do I handle this?

Thanks,
Edith

# Posted By Edith | 4/25/08 4:46 PM

Hi Scott, regarding the post above...

Please disregard the lines:
1) target="_blank"... (I think this got added when I clicked POST)
2) <cfset AttributeNodes = xmlSearch(MyXMLDoc,'/ProductsComparison/dataSheetComparison/attributeGroup/attribute')>
and
3) #arraylen(AttributeNodes)#yyy, #2 and #3 belong to the rest of the XML text that I deleted.

Follow-up question:
How do I get the values of the attributes within the productSummary/category and productSummary/manufacturer, see below:
<category parId="10502" name="Mailers & Envelopes" id="10500"/>
<manufacturer sku="75050" name="MeadWestvaco" id="1020728"/>

Thanks again,
Edith

# Posted By Edith | 4/25/08 4:58 PM

When you have a namespace assigned to your XML it gets a little more complicated. You have to use the local-name() and namespace-uri() functions to identify the nodes in your xPath expression. Here is how you would retrieve your Product Nodes:

<cfset ProductNodes = xmlSearch(MyXMLDoc,"/*[local-name()='ProductsComparison' and namespace-uri()='http://com.etilize.spexlive']/*[local-name()='products']/*[local-name()='productSummary']")>

# Posted By Scott Bennett | 4/25/08 6:26 PM

@Edith,

Also, after you do the search above, you can access the attributes in your xml nodes like this:

<cfoutput>
<cfloop from="1" to="#arraylen(ProductNodes)#" index="i">
<cfset ProductNodeXML = xmlparse(ProductNodes[i])>
<cfdump var="#ProductNodeXML#">
Category ParID: #ProductNodeXML.productsummary.category.XmlAttributes.parId# 
Category Name: #ProductNodeXML.productsummary.category.xmlAttributes.name# 
</cfloop>
</cfoutput>

# Posted By Scott Bennett | 4/25/08 6:49 PM

Thanks Scott, I appreciate that you reply to my questions. the local-name() and the namespace-uri() worked. I do have another question though... How do I deal with SOAP responses? Instead of parsing a simple XML, my XML is now within soap tags, please see below:
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"; xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"; xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">...;
<soap:Body>
...same XML goes here...
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

Thanks in advance,
Edith

# Posted By Edith | 4/25/08 9:03 PM

@Edith,

Ben Nadel wrote an article a while back that demonstrates how to remove the prefixes and namespaces from SOAP XML to make it easier to use xPath expressions, you may want to give that a try.

http://www.bennadel.com/blog/494-Stripping-XML-Nam...

# Posted By Scott Bennett | 4/28/08 8:20 PM

Hi,
I m having a problem in reading the xml file. the structure of xml file looks like <company name="Macromedia">
<employees><person>Tom Cruise</person><age>20</age></employees>
<employees><person><h1>John </h1></person><age>20</age></employees></company>
in this xml file person node has HTML tag. i need to read the xml file data and populate them to form fields. Can anyone help me on this.
Thanks Renu

# Posted By renu | 1/21/09 3:42 PM

One more thing i forgot to write, i need to update/ add and delete the data from xml file

# Posted By renu | 1/21/09 3:45 PM

Thanks for tutorial, 1 exemple is more than 1000 words

# Posted By Tutorials Men | 4/21/09 3:10 PM

I tried your example using CF MX6.1 (I know....) and it didn't work. I had to make several modifications as can be seen below, have the functions changed. When I ran your version I kept getting a 'Document root element is missing' error on <cfset BookXML = xmlparse(BookNodes[i])>, I guess because we had already stripped this out from Books. Did these functions change to become more user friendly, will my code still work under MX 8 so I don't have to rewrite it when I upgrade (hopefully soon).


<cffile action="read" file="C:Temp est2.xml" variable="XMLFile">


<cfset MyXMLDoc = xmlParse(XMLFile) />


<h2>Dump</h2>
<cfdump var="#MyXMLDoc#">


<cfset BookNodes = xmlSearch(MyXMLDoc,'/books/book')>
<cfoutput>
No of Books: #arraylen(BookNodes)#
 <h2>Book Nodes</h2>
 <cfloop from="1" to="#arraylen(BookNodes)#" index="i">
 

 <cfset BookXML = BookNodes[i] />
 ISBN: #BookXML.isbn.xmltext# 
 Title: #BookXML.title.xmlText# 
 Author: #BookXML.author.xmlText# 
 </cfloop>
</cfoutput>


<cfset Authors = xmlSearch(MyXMLDoc,'//author')>
<cfoutput>
 <h2>Author Nodes</h2>
 <cfloop from="1" to="#arraylen(Authors)#" index="i">
 <cfset AuthorXML = Authors[i] />
 Author: #AuthorXML.xmlText# 
 </cfloop>
</cfoutput>


<cfset SearchByTitle = xmlSearch(MyXMLDoc,'//book [contains(title,"ColdFusion")]')>
<cfoutput>
 <h2>Advanced Search</h2>
 <cfloop from="1" to="#arraylen(SearchByTitle)#" index="i">
 <cfset BookXML = SearchByTitle[i]>
 ISBN: #BookXML.isbn.xmltext# 
 Title: #BookXML.title.xmlText# 
 Author: #BookXML.author.xmlText# 
 </cfloop>
</cfoutput>

# Posted By Dave | 6/21/09 11:55 AM

Please help me. i have to create a one small module into spex live integration in mageno so can u help me

# Posted By Sanky | 2/24/10 3:44 AM

@Sanky
I have no Idea what "spex" or "mageno" is. I'd be happy to help if you can clarify you question. You can use the Contact page on this site to send me the full description.

# Posted By Scott Bennett | 2/24/10 5:43 PM

I have a simple xml doc and cannot seem to extract just the ID Numbers

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ArrayOfLong xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"; xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"; xmlns="http://copsync.com/interface">;
<long>194407</long>
<long>194409</long>
<long>232747</long>
<long>232748</long>
</ArrayOfLong>

I can list everything, but not just the ID numbers using

xmlSearch(MyXMLDoc,'//')

but cannot get it to list just the <long>ID Number</long>

Any suggestions?

Ted
PS Not sure if I am posting this twice as the first time when I clicked POST, the page just closed down

# Posted By Ted Daniels | 10/24/10 2:50 PM

This is the first XPath tutorial that actually seemed to be helpful. I have spent the last two hours on your page just getting the bugs worked out of my code.

Thanks so much for taking the time to put this whole thing together.

You've REALLY helped me out!!!!

# Posted By Evik James | 8/6/11 6:34 PM

Is there a way to check for an exsitence of a file on an external server first?
If I am pulling data from say http://www.mohadi.com/myxmldata.xml,
I want to be able to see if myxmldata.xml exsists before I perform XMLParse call.

# Posted By Mo Hadi | 6/18/12 7:01 PM

Hi,

This tutorial is very helpful. I am trying to work this tutorial into parsing a soap response, but am having issues.
Is it possible to incorporate this concept when receiving an xml soap response?

Any info would be greatly appreciated!

# Posted By Emily | 6/25/12 2:45 PM

Great tutorial. Had it working in 5 minutes in my application. Thanks.

# Posted By Ryan Trask | 9/13/12 7:50 AM

Thanks! Excellent tutorial.

# Posted By Chris Bowyer | 10/8/22 2:50 PM

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