MatlabXML

Parses XML in pure Matlab

Given an XML file as test.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<content>
  <foo attr="bar"/>
</content>

You can read this file with

>>> xml = MatlabXML('test.xml')

ans = 

  MatlabXMLElement with properties:

          Name: '#document#'
    Attributes: [2x1 containers.Map]
      Children: [1x1 MatlabXMLElement]

which will return a MatlabXMLElement with three properties:

• Name is the name of the element or document
• Attributes are the attributes of the element as containers.Map
• Children are the element's children as an array of MatlabXMLElement.

Why?

Why would you use this instead of Matlab's built-in xmlread?

• xmlread is a horrible Java API that has no place in Matlab.
• xmlread is extremely slow for large XML files.
• xmlread will happily consume all your memory even if you max out your Java heap.

Why not?

Because MatlabXML does not support all of XML.

• No support for CDATA.
• No support for text nodes.
• No support for DTD.
• No verification whatsoever.

Examples:

>>> xml.Attributes('version')

ans = 

    '1.0'
   
>>> xml.Children

ans = 

  MatlabXMLElement with properties:

          Name: 'content'
    Attributes: [0x1 containers.Map]
      Children: [1x1 MatlabXMLElement]


>>> xml.Children(1).Children(1)

ans = 

  MatlabXMLElement with properties:

          Name: 'foo'
    Attributes: [1x1 containers.Map]
      Children: [1x0 Double]


>>> xml.Children(1).Children(1).Attributes('attr')

ans = 

  'bar'