QTextBrowser doesn't properly show backslashed characters

Question

I'm creating a widget that will display XML strings in a pretty formatted way. To do this I'm using a QXmlStreamReader and a QXmlStreamWriter (based on the answer from Format XML file in c++ or Qt) and feed the text to a QTextBrowser:

message = "<person><name>John</name><surname>Smith</surname><hobbies><sport>football</sport><sport>tenis</sport><activity>dancing</activity></hobbies></person>"
byteArray = QByteArray()
xmlReader = QXmlStreamReader(message)
xmlWriter = QXmlStreamWriter(byteArray)
xmlWriter.setAutoFormatting(True)
while (not xmlReader.atEnd()):
    xmlReader.readNext();
    if (not xmlReader.isWhitespace()):
        xmlWriter.writeCurrentToken(xmlReader)
prettyMessage = str(byteArray.data())
textBrowser.setText(prettyMessage)

But the resulting text doesn't convert \n to new lines:

If I input manually a string with \n in it, they are converted to new lines:

textBrowser.setText("1\n2\n3\n4")

I've checked the exact content of byteArray to make sure that the \n is passed as one character and not as two separate '\' and 'n' characters:

for i in range(0, byteArray.size()):
    sys.stdout.write(byteArray.at(i))

prints out the XML string as expected:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<person>
    <name>John</name>
    <surname>Smith</surname>
    <hobbies>
        <sport>football</sport>
        <sport>tenis</sport>
        <activity>dancing</activity>
    </hobbies>
</person>

^{I'm using python 3.6 with PyQt5}

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 31 '17 at 18:37

1

You need to decode the data in the QByteArray. This can be done using a QTextStream, which then allows you to easily set the right codec:

    byteArray = QByteArray()
    xmlReader = QXmlStreamReader(message)
    xmlWriter = QXmlStreamWriter(byteArray)
    xmlWriter.setAutoFormatting(True)
    while (not xmlReader.atEnd()):
        xmlReader.readNext();
        if (not xmlReader.isWhitespace()):
            xmlWriter.writeCurrentToken(xmlReader)

    stream = QTextStream(byteArray)
    stream.setCodec(xmlWriter.codec())
    textBrowser.setText(stream.readAll())

answered Oct 31 '17 at 18:37

ekhumoro

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The line `stream.setCodec(xmlWriter.codec())` is not necesary. – SIMEL Nov 01 '17 at 07:42
@SIMEL. It is necessary if the xml writer uses a codec that is different to the default used by `QTextStream`. So it is generally better to always include that line. – ekhumoro Nov 01 '17 at 14:50

QTextBrowser doesn't properly show backslashed characters

1 Answers1