Gyoku

Translates Ruby Hashes to XML

Gyoku is available through Rubygems and can be installed via:

$ gem install gyoku

Gyoku is based on a few conventions.

Gyoku.xml(:find_user => { :id => 123, "v1:Key" => "api" })
# => "<findUser><id>123</id><v1:Key>api</v1:Key></findUser>"

Hash keys

Hash key Symbols are converted to lowerCamelCase Strings.

Gyoku.xml(:lower_camel_case => "key")
# => "<lowerCamelCase>key</lowerCamelCase>"

You can change the default conversion formula.

Gyoku.convert_symbols_to :camelcase  # or one of [:none, :lower_camelcase, :upcase]

Gyoku.xml(:camel_case => "key")
# => "<CamelCase>key</CamelCase>"

And you can also define your own formula.

Gyoku.convert_symbols_to { |key| key.sub(/^prefixed_/, '') }

Gyoku.xml(:prefixed_attribute => "key")
# => "<attribute>key</attribute>"

Hash key Strings are not converted and may contain namespaces.

Gyoku.xml("XML" => "key")
# => "<XML>key</XML>"

Hash values

• DateTime objects are converted to xs:dateTime Strings
• Objects responding to :to_datetime (except Strings) are converted to xs:dateTime Strings
• TrueClass and FalseClass objects are converted to "true" and "false" Strings
• NilClass objects are converted to xsi:nil tags
• These conventions are also applied to the return value of objects responding to :call
• All other objects are converted to Strings using :to_s

Special characters

Gyoku escapes special characters unless the Hash key ends with an exclamation mark.

Gyoku.xml(:escaped => "<tag />", :not_escaped! => "<tag />")
# => "<escaped>&lt;tag /&gt;</escaped><notEscaped><tag /></notEscaped>"

Self-closing tags

Hash Keys ending with a forward slash create self-closing tags.

Gyoku.xml(:"self_closing/" => "", "selfClosing/" => nil)
# => "<selfClosing/><selfClosing/>"

Sort XML tags

In case you need the XML tags to be in a specific order, you can specify the order through an additional Array stored under an :order! key.

Gyoku.xml(:name => "Eve", :id => 1, :order! => [:id, :name])
# => "<id>1</id><name>Eve</name>"

XML attributes

Adding XML attributes is rather ugly, but it can be done by specifying an additional Hash stored under an :attributes! key.

Gyoku.xml(:person => "Eve", :attributes! => { :person => { :id => 1 } })
# => "<person id=\"1\">Eve</person>"

Explicit XML Attributes

In addition to using :attributes!, you may also specify attributes with key names beginning with "@".

Since you'll need to set the attribute within the hash containing the node's contents, a :content! key can be used to explicity set the content of the node. The ":content!" value may be a String, Hash, or Array.

This is particularly useful for self-closing tags.

Using :attributes!

Gyoku.xml(
  "foo/" => "", 
  :attributes! => {
    "foo/" => {
      "bar" => "1", 
      "biz" => "2", 
      "baz" => "3"
    }
  }
)
# => "<foo baz=\"3\" bar=\"1\" biz=\"2\"/>"

Using "@" keys and ":content!"

Gyoku.xml(
  "foo/" => {
    :@bar => "1",
    :@biz => "2",
    :@baz => "3",
    :content! => ""
  })
# => "<foo baz=\"3\" bar=\"1\" biz=\"2\"/>"

This seems a bit more explicit with the attributes rather than having to maintain a hash of attributes.

For backward compatibility, :attributes! will still work. However, "@" keys will override :attributes! keys if there is a conflict.

Gyoku.xml(:person => {:content! => "Adam", :@id! => 0})
# => "<person id=\"0\">Adam</person>"

Example with ":content!", :attributes! and "@" keys

Gyoku.xml({ 
  :subtitle => { 
    :@lang => "en", 
    :content! => "It's Godzilla!" 
  }, 
  :attributes! => { :subtitle => { "lang" => "jp" } } 
}
# => "<subtitle lang=\"en\">It's Godzilla!</subtitle>"

The example above shows an example of how you can use all three at the same time.

Notice that we have the attribute "lang" defined twice. The "@lang" value takes precedence over the :attribute![:subtitle]["lang"] value.