NSXMLElement with solo tag . ie. <tagname attributename=attributevalue />

Question

I'm trying to create a XML string which should contain solo tags (ie. tag without separate closing tags) I am able to create normal xml tags like

<tagname attribute=attributevalue></tagname>

using the code

NSXMLElement *childElement=[[NSXMLElement alloc] initWithName:childName];
childElement.stringValue=childValue;
[childElement addAttribute:[NSXMLNode attributeWithName:attributeName stringValue:attributeValue]];
[self.currentNode addChild:[childElement copy]];

but I need it like this

<tagname attributename=attributevalue />

Answer 1

Before saving your file, when creating NSData, add this option : NSXMLNodeCompactEmptyElement

Like this :

NSData *xmlData =
  [xmlDoc XMLDataWithOptions:NSXMLNodePrettyPrint | NSXMLNodeCompactEmptyElement];

Then serialize your file :

  [xmlData writeToURL:theFile atomically:YES]

Reference : NSXMLNode class reference
Section Constants

NSXMLNodeExpandEmptyElement
  Requests that an element should be expanded when empty; for example, <flag></flag>. This is the default.
  Available in Mac OS X v10.4 and later. Declared in NSXMLNodeOptions.h.

NSXMLNodeCompactEmptyElement
  Requests that an element should be contracted when empty; for example, <flag/>.
  Available in Mac OS X v10.4 and later. Declared in NSXMLNodeOptions.h.

Answer 2

<tagname attribute=attributevalue></tagname>

and

<tagname attributename=attributevalue />

are completely equivalent in XML and it is only a question of formatting how do you write them. If you don't have some particular reason to create "beautifully formatted" XML source code, I wouldn't bother myself with it.

Also, the code above does not create neither representation: it stores the data in an internal structure not if the form of XML source code. Your question might be valid only when you want to export the XML tree structure into a XML source file.

Answer 3

Everything MrTJ says is correct, but it's possible that the serializer is being confused because you have set the text content of the node. It may be that it sees the text content node (even though it has a zero length string) and creates start and end tags because it exists at all.

Try something like:

if ([childValue length] > 0)
{
    childElement.stringValue=childValue;
}