# XML Manipulating

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/xml-manipulating/181465>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [January 12, 2010, 12:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/xml-manipulating/181465 "2010-01-12T12:44:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anandhkumar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@anandhkumar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/anandhkumar)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/xml-manipulating/181465/1 "2010-01-12T12:44:40Z")

</div>

Hi everybody

```
    Can anybody there help me in solving the following issue.

```

Consider the XML

```
  <row>
     <column>Business Strategy</column>
     <column>bus1</column>
  </row>
  <row>
     <column>Company Description</column>
     <column>tar1</column>
  </row>
  <row>
      <column>Business Strategy</column>
      <column>bus2</column>
  </row>
  <row>
      <column>Company Description</column>
      <column>tar2</column>
  </row>
  <row>
     <column>Business Strategy</column>
     <column>bus3</column>
  </row>
  <row>
     <column>Company Description</column>
     <column>tar3</column>
  </row>

```

Can this xml be parsed and manipulated in ruby as

```
  <row>
     <column>Business Strategy</column>
     <column>bus1</column>
     <column>bus2</column>
     <column>bus3</column>
  </row>
  <row>
     <column>Company Description</column>
     <column>tar1</column>
     <column>tar2</column>
     <column>tar3</column>
  </row>

```

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Anandh

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anandhkumar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@anandhkumar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/anandhkumar)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 1:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/xml-manipulating/181465/2 "2010-01-12T13:06:16Z")

</div>

El Martes, 12 de Enero de 2010, Anandh K. escribió:

> ```
> <row>
> </row>
> 
> <column>tar3</column>
> </row>
> 
> ```
> 
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Of course it can be manipulated to get your desired output. You must use  
a XML  
parser (I recommend Nokogiri), inspect the XML by extracting/moving the  
nodes  
you are interested in and generating the new XML.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anandhkumar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@anandhkumar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/anandhkumar)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 2:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/xml-manipulating/181465/3 "2010-01-12T14:57:27Z")

</div>

Hi Anandh,

I’ve cross-posted my reply to nokogiri-talk, which is where followup  
questions are probably best sent.

On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 6:44 AM, Anandh K.  
[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote:

> ```
> <row>
> </row>
> 
> <column>tar3</column>
> </row>
> 
> ```
> 
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.

This is straightforward if you know some XPath (see  
[xpath cover page](http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath)) and Nokogiri.

I’ve posted a solution at:

> <https://gist.github.com/flavorjones/275209>

The general idea is that we find the nodes we care about, and then build  
a  
new document with those contents.

Cheers,  
-mike

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anandhkumar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@anandhkumar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/anandhkumar)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 1:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/xml-manipulating/181465/4 "2010-01-13T13:31:54Z")

</div>

Anandh  
  
Apply an XSLT with Ruby On Rails.  
Please refer  
[http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/4615](http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/4615)  
  
[http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2007/01/17/making-xml-in-a-rails-app-xml-builder.html](http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2007/01/17/making-xml-in-a-rails-app-xml-builder.html)  
  
thanks  
Deepak

— On Tue, 1/12/10, Anandh K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

From: Anandh K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
Subject: XML Manipulating  
To: “ruby-talk ML” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
Date: Tuesday, January 12, 2010, 3:44 AM

Hi everybody

    Can anybody there help me in solving the following issue.

Consider the XML

     
      Business Strategy  
      bus1  
     
     
      Company Description  
      tar1  
     
     
     Business Strategy  
     bus2  
     
     
     Company Description  
     tar2  
     
     
      Business Strategy  
      bus3  
     
     
      Company Description  
      tar3  
  Â

Can this xml be parsed and manipulated in ruby as

     
      Business Strategy  
      bus1  
      bus2  
      bus3  
     
     
      Company Description  
      tar1  
      tar2  
      tar3  
  Â

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Anandh

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anandhkumar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@anandhkumar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/anandhkumar)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 1:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/xml-manipulating/181465/5 "2010-01-20T13:14:58Z")

</div>

\<?xml version="1.0"?\> Business Strategy aaaa aaaaa gggg \<?xml version="1.0"?\> Company Description bbbb bbbb fhghj \<?xml version="1.0"?\> Business Strategy aaaa aaaaa gggg \<?xml version="1.0"?\> Company Description bbbb bbbb fhghj

Consider the above XML. Is there anyway to remove “\<?xml version="1.0"?\>” and also the duplicate block with same data.

For example consider the following identical blocks

\<?xml version="1.0"?\> Business Strategy aaaa aaaaa gggg \<?xml version="1.0"?\> Business Strategy aaaa aaaaa gggg

The resulting xml should remove the duplicate block and should contain  
only one.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in Advance

Anandh

Anandh K. wrote:

> Thanks mike. The solution solved my problem to a greater extent but with  
> one issue.
> 
> In the resulting solution which is as follows
> 
> Business Strategy bus1 bus2 bus3 Company Description tar1 tar2 tar3
> 
> Can you suggest me how can i avoid “\<?xml version="1.0"?\>”.
> 
> If i give some thing like this
> 
> puts new\_doc.to\_xml(:dasherize =\> false, :skip\_instruct=\>true)
> 
> Ruby compiler threw argument error.
> 
> Any help would be appreciated.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Anandh
> 
> Mike D. wrote:
> 
> > Hi Anandh,
> > 
> > I’ve cross-posted my reply to nokogiri-talk, which is where followup  
> > questions are probably best sent.
> > 
> > On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 6:44 AM, Anandh K.  
> > [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote:
> > 
> > > ```
> > > <row>
> > > </row>
> > > 
> > > <column>tar3</column>
> > > </row>
> > > 
> > > ```
> > > 
> > > Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> > 
> > This is straightforward if you know some XPath (see  
> > [xpath cover page](http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath)) and Nokogiri.
> > 
> > I’ve posted a solution at:
> > 
> > [xml.rb · GitHub](http://gist.github.com/275209)
> > 
> > The general idea is that we find the nodes we care about, and then build  
> > a  
> > new document with those contents.
> > 
> > Cheers,  
> > -mike

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anandhkumar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@anandhkumar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/anandhkumar)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 10:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/xml-manipulating/181465/6 "2010-01-20T10:06:23Z")

</div>

Thanks mike. The solution solved my problem to a greater extent but with  
one issue.

In the resulting solution which is as follows

Business Strategy bus1 bus2 bus3 Company Description tar1 tar2 tar3

Can you suggest me how can i avoid “\<?xml version="1.0"?\>”.

If i give some thing like this

puts new\_doc.to\_xml(:dasherize =\> false, :skip\_instruct=\>true)

Ruby compiler threw argument error.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Anandh

Mike D. wrote:

> Hi Anandh,
> 
> I’ve cross-posted my reply to nokogiri-talk, which is where followup  
> questions are probably best sent.
> 
> On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 6:44 AM, Anandh K.  
> [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote:
> 
> > ```
> > <row>
> > </row>
> > 
> > <column>tar3</column>
> > </row>
> > 
> > ```
> > 
> > Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> This is straightforward if you know some XPath (see  
> [xpath cover page](http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath)) and Nokogiri.
> 
> I’ve posted a solution at:
> 
> [xml.rb · GitHub](http://gist.github.com/275209)
> 
> The general idea is that we find the nodes we care about, and then build  
> a  
> new document with those contents.
> 
> Cheers,  
> -mike

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anandhkumar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@anandhkumar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/anandhkumar)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 7:38am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/xml-manipulating/181465/7 "2010-01-22T07:38:06Z")

</div>

Dear Mike

```
Can this be done using Hpricot. I tried doing with Hpricot. But 

```

Hpricot doesnot support xpath. It support something called “search”.With  
that too I could not get my desired result since it doesnot support  
“following-sibling” property.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Anandh

Mike D. wrote:

> Hi Anandh,
> 
> I’ve cross-posted my reply to nokogiri-talk, which is where followup  
> questions are probably best sent.
> 
> On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 6:44 AM, Anandh K.  
> [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote:
> 
> > ```
> > <row>
> > </row>
> > 
> > <column>tar3</column>
> > </row>
> > 
> > ```
> > 
> > Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> This is straightforward if you know some XPath (see  
> [xpath cover page](http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath)) and Nokogiri.
> 
> I’ve posted a solution at:
> 
> [xml.rb · GitHub](http://gist.github.com/275209)
> 
> The general idea is that we find the nodes we care about, and then build  
> a  
> new document with those contents.
> 
> Cheers,  
> -mike