Freemarker template engine to retrieve data from xml

Question

I have a xml with format say

<x>    
    <y>
        <z Name="z"> File Explorer </z>
    </y>
</x>

I want to write a freemarker template to retrieve the content "File Explorer". I have written java code to transform xml to html. input xml is given xml.

Configuration configuration = new Configuration(Configuration.VERSION_2_3_23);
 configuration.setTemplateExceptionHandler(TemplateExceptionHandler.RETHROW_HANDLER);
        configuration.setDefaultEncoding("UTF-8");
InputSource inputSource = new InputSource( new StringReader(xml.asXML()));
        root.put("doc", freemarker.ext.dom.NodeModel.parse(inputSource));
        result = new StringWriter();
        template.process(root, result);

I tried freemarker template with xpath

<span>${doc["x/y/z[@Name='z']"/]}</span>

But this on transforming displays ${doc["x/y/z[@Name='z']"/]} instead of
File Explorer

Why do you have to use freemarker for this task? Why can't you use standard xml parser like in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/773012/getting-xml-node-text-value-with-java-dom (see the answer)? — rsutormin, Sep 17 '15 at 04:44
If it indeed shows the `${...}` thing as is, then that file doesn't go through FreeMarker processing. (When it does, you will have to remove the last `/`, otherwise you get a FreeMarker syntax error.) — ddekany, Sep 17 '15 at 06:22
@ddekany Solved the issue. The problem was with java code to compile freemarker template. Should create template with method Template template = new Template("name", new StringReader(), Configuration) instead. Now I am stuck with another issue. Does anyone have a clue on how to display content using xpath? In this example I have display "File Explorer" using Name attribute. — Priyanka Deo, Sep 21 '15 at 22:40
Isn't that what you are doing inside that `${...}`? Does it give an error, or what doesn't work? — ddekany, Sep 23 '15 at 05:57

Paul Sweatte · Answer 1 · 2017-09-20T04:34:00.403

Use the Freemarker Ant task freemarker.ext.ant.FreemarkerXmlTask:

Go to the lib folder which includes the freemarker JAR file
Copy the path
Paste it into the location attribute of the pathElement element of the Ant task
Copy the path of the XML file
Paste it into the attribute basedir in the freemarker element of the Ant task
Copy the path of the FTL file
Paste it into the template attribute of the freemarker element of the Ant task

For example:

Ant task

build.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<project basedir="." default="generate" name="FreeMarker-FAQ">

  <taskdef name="freemarker" classname="freemarker.ext.ant.FreemarkerXmlTask">
    <classpath> 
      <fileset dir="lib">
        <include name="freemarker.jar"/>
      </fileset>
    </classpath>
  </taskdef>

  <target name="generate">
    <mkdir dir="html"/>
    <freemarker basedir="." template="xml2html.ftl" includes="xml/data.xml" destdir="html"/>
  </target>

</project>

XML file

data.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root name="test" value="123">
  <child name="data" value="456"/>
</root>

Freemarker Template

xml2html.ftl

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
 <head>
  <title>${.node.root.@name}</title>
  <meta name="keywords" content="FreeMarker, Java, servlet, HTML, template, free software, open source, XML" />
 </head>
 <body bgcolor="#ffffff">
  <h2><a name="top">${.node.root.child.@name}.</a></h2>
 </body>
</html>

Directory structure
build.xml
- /lib
  - freemarker.jar
- /html
  - data.html
- /xml
  - data.xml

Then run ant from the directory which contains the build.xml file.

References

Freemarker template engine to retrieve data from xml

1 Answers1