Generate XML in Rails and Ruby

If you're lucky enough to have a Rails console, you can use the to_xml to return a string containing an XML representation of its receiver:

{"fname" => "foo", "lname" => "bar"}.to_xml
# =>
# <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
# <hash>
#   <fname type="string">foo</fname>
#   <lname type="string">bar</lname>
# </hash>

If you don't have the luxury of the Rails framework, then checkout the XML Builder gem.

Install Builder

$ gem install builder

Alternatively, you can put it in your Gemfile.

Open an irb Console


$ irb

irb(main):001:0> require 'active_support/builder' unless defined?(Builder)

=> true

Use Builder's XmlMarkup  functionality

builder = Builder::XmlMarkup.new(:target=>STDOUT, :indent=>2)
builder.person { |b| b.fname("foo"); b.lname("bar") }

To generate XML

<person>
  <fname>foo</fname>
  <lname>bar</lname>
</person>

If you are interested in how the Builder code leverages Ruby's dynamic language features to make this magic happen, take a look at the humbug article below.

References

http://apidock.com/rails/v3.1.0/Hash/to_xml
http://www.humbug.in/docs/ruby-best-practices/I_sect13_d1e2654.html

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