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How to create an XML document with a namespaced root element with Nokogiri Builder

Asked 2009-12-01T22:35:26.027
13

I'm implementing an exporter for XML data that requires namespaces. I'm using Nokogiri's XML Builder (version 1.4.0) to do this, however, I can't get Nokogiri to create a root node with a namespace.

This works:

Nokogiri::XML::Builder.new { |xml| xml.root('xmlns:foobar' => 'my-ns-url') }.to_xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root xmlns:foobar="my-ns-url"/>

As does this:

Nokogiri::XML::Builder.new do |xml| 
  xml.root('xmlns:foobar' => 'my-ns-url') { xml['foobar'].child }
end.to_xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root xmlns:foobar="my-ns-url">
  <foobar:child/>
</root>

However, I need something like <foo:root> and this doesn't work:

Nokogiri::XML::Builder.new { |xml| xml['foobar'].root('xmlns:foobar' => 'my-ns-url') }.to_xml

NoMethodError: undefined method `namespace_definitions' for #<Nokogiri::XML::Document:0x11bfef8 name="document">

Namespaces have to be defined before use, apparently, so there's no way to add one to the root node.

I found "Define root node with a namespace?" on the Nokogiri mailing list, but it had no replies.

Does anyone have a solution?

xml ruby namespaces nokogiri
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1 Answer

8

Two years later, I found a cleaner way to do this by using Nokogiri::XML::Builder's document reference to retrieve the root node and add the namespace(s) to that. Like the previous solution, it requires the root node to exist before the namespaces can be added to it.

I've changed the <root> element to <rootElement> so this is more clear:

builder = Nokogiri::XML::Builder.new do |xml| 
  xml.rootElement do
    # create a namespace and save it for later
    ns = xml.doc.root.add_namespace_definition('foo', 'my-ns-url')
    # you can also create multiple name spaces
    xml.doc.root.add_namespace_definition('bar', 'http://example.com/bar')

    # assign the saved namespace to rootElement
    xml.doc.root.namespace = ns

    xml['foo'].child
    xml['bar'].child
  end
end

Now, builder.to_xml will return:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<foo:rootElement xmlns:foo="my-ns-url" xmlns:bar="http://example.com/bar">
  <foo:child/>
  <bar:child/>
</foo:rootElement>

I like this better because you don't have to search for the name space, and it's easier to add multiple namespaces.

answered 2012-03-28T01:02:45.383

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