Updated guide for TBXML: How to include TBXML in Xcode 5, for iOS 7

Question

I'm having problems including TBXML in my project.

1. The guide tells me to include four files, TBXML.h, TBXML.m, NSDataAdditions.h, and NSDataAdditions.m, but the latter two are nowhere to be found in the Github repo.

2. I tried running the sample project TBXML-Books in the hopes of copying how TBXML was imported into the project, but it doesn't build successfully in Xcode 5 either. It can't find libTBXML-iOS.a.

Anybody help? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Including TBXML into your project

1. Get TBXML.h and TBXML.m from the Github repo and add them into your project. Those two are the only files you need.

2. In your project's Target > Build Phases, add the compiler flag -fno-objc-arc to TBXML.m.

Loading an XML document

TBXML *sourceXML = [[TBXML alloc] initWithXMLFile:@"dictionary.xml" error:nil];

You can alloc-init with the other init instance methods, or do it class-method style (I didn't include the deprecated methods):

- (id)initWithXMLString:(NSString*)aXMLString error:(NSError **)error;
- (id)initWithXMLData:(NSData*)aData error:(NSError **)error;
- (id)initWithXMLFile:(NSString*)aXMLFile error:(NSError **)error;
- (id)initWithXMLFile:(NSString*)aXMLFile fileExtension:(NSString*)aFileExtension error:(NSError **)error;

+ (id)newTBXMLWithXMLString:(NSString*)aXMLString error:(NSError **)error;
+ (id)newTBXMLWithXMLData:(NSData*)aData error:(NSError **)error;
+ (id)newTBXMLWithXMLFile:(NSString*)aXMLFile error:(NSError **)error;
+ (id)newTBXMLWithXMLFile:(NSString*)aXMLFile fileExtension:(NSString*)aFileExtension error:(NSError **)error;

Sample XML structure

<dictionary>
    <entry id="">
        <text></text>
    </entry>

    <entry id="">
        <text></text>
    </entry>
</dictionary>

Extracting elements

TBXMLElement *rootElement = sourceXML.rootXMLElement;
TBXMLElement *entryElement = [TBXML childElementNamed:@"entry" parentElement:rootElement];

Extracting attributes

NSString *id = [TBXML valueOfAttributeNamed:@"id" forElement:entryElement];

Extracting element text

TBXMLElement *textElement = [TBXML childElementNamed:@"text" parentElement:entryElement];
NSString *text = [TBXML textForElement:textElement];

Traversing unknown elements/attributes

If I wanted to print out the text inside every <text> element inside every <entry>, this is what I'll do:

TBXML *sourceXML = [[TBXML alloc] initWithXMLFile:@"dictionary.xml" error:nil];
TBXMLElement *rootElement = sourceXML.rootXMLElement;
TBXMLElement *entryElement = [TBXML childElementNamed:@"entry" parentElement:rootElement];

do {
    TBXMLElement *textElement = [TBXML childElementNamed:@"text" parentElement:entryElement];
    NSString *word = [TBXML textForElement:textElement];
    NSLog(@"%@", word);
} while ((entryElement = entryElement->nextSibling) != nil);

I haven't personally tried out traversing the attributes but I assume you can do something like entryElement->firstAttribute, as shown in the old guide. You can also just look at TBXML.h for how to go about it.

Answer 2

I'd suggest using cocoapods if you aren't already.

http://cocoapods.org/?q=tbxml