CFLib.org – Common Function Library Project

Description:
Need to convert a structure or array to XML and have it multi-level? This one recursive function will convert these items into a XML string (without the XML header), beginning with one element and walking through all keys and arrays. Very simple and very fast - for arrays it assumes that the array name is plural, and children will be the non-plural version (will be the same if not plural) - ending with an "S", not intelligent, i.e. won't convert "spies" to "spy".

Return Values:
Returns a string.

Example:

<cfscript>
    t = structNew();
    t.logical = "true";
    t.data = structNew();
    t.data.item = 1;
    t.data.another_item = 2;
    t.data.string = "hello";
    t.array_items = arrayNew(1);
    arrayAppend(t.array_items, "error 1");
    arrayAppend(t.array_items, "error 2");
    arrayAppend(t.array_items, "error 3");

    x = toXML(t, "root");
</cfscript>
<cfoutput>#HTMLeditFormat(x)#</cfoutput>

Parameters:

Full UDF Source:

<!---
 Convert Structures/Arrays (including embedded) to XML.
 
 @param input      Data to convert into XML. (Required)
 @param element      Used to name the root element. (Required)
 @return Returns a string. 
 @author Phil Arnold (philip.r.j.arnold@googlemail.com) 
 @version 0, September 9, 2009 
--->
<cffunction name="toXML" output="false" returntype="String">
    <cfargument name="input" type="Any" required="true" />
    <cfargument name="element" type="string" required="true" />
    <cfscript>
        var i = 0;
        var s = "";
        var s1 = "";
        s1 = arguments.element;
        if (right(s1, 1) eq "s") {
            s1 = left(s1, len(s1)-1);
        }
        
        s = s & "<#lcase(arguments.element)#>";
        if (isArray(arguments.input)) {
            for (i = 1; i lte arrayLen(arguments.input); i = i + 1) {
                if (isSimpleValue(arguments.input[i])) {
                    s = s & "<#lcase(s1)#>" & arguments.input[i] & "</#lcase(s1)#>";
                } else {
                    s = s & toXML(arguments.input[i], s1);
                }
            }
        } else if (isStruct(arguments.input)) {
            for (i in arguments.input) {
                if (isSimpleValue(arguments.input[i])) {
                    s = s & "<#lcase(i)#>" & arguments.input[i] & "</#lcase(i)#>";
                } else {
                    s = s & toXML(arguments.input[i], i);
                }
            }
        } else {
            s = s & XMLformat(arguments.input);
        }
        s = s & "</#lcase(arguments.element)#>";
    </cfscript>
    <cfreturn s />
</cffunction>