The xleb library defines a simple monadic language for easily parsing XML structures. It does not parse the XML itself, relying on the xml library to define the underlying types and parser, but rather exposes a simple monad with helper functions to make defining XML-based structures quick and straightforward, of roughly equal complexity to defining a fromJSON instance for aeson.
The Xleb monad describes both parsing and traversing a given XML structure: several of the functions to produce Xleb computations take other Xleb computations, which are run on various sub-parts of the XML tree. Consequently, instead of decomposing an XML structure and passing it around to various functions, the Xleb language treats "the current location in the tree" as an implicit piece of data in the Xleb monad.
You will generally want to identify your root note with the elem function to ensure that your root note has the tag you expect. Children of that node can be accessed using the child or children function to either unambiguously find a specific child element, or to find all child elements that match a given selector and apply a Xleb computation to each of them.
a <- X.child (X.byTag "a") parseA
b <- X.children (X.byTag "b") parseB
Leaf data tends to come in two forms in XML: attribute values (like <tag attr="value">) or tag content (like <tag>value</tag>). In both cases, the Xleb functions allow you to parse that content however you'd like by providing an arbitrary function of type String -> Either String a. The xleb library provides several built-in functions of this type for common situations.
c <- X.attr "index" X.number
d <- X.contents X.string
Finally, the Xleb monad has Alternative instances which allow for concise expression of optional values or multiple possibilities.
e <- X.children X.any (parseA <|> parseB)
f <- optional (X.attr "total" X.number)
Say we want to parse a simple XML feed format that looks like the following, with the extra caveat that we'd like the author field to be optional:
<feed>
<title>Feed Name</title>
<author>Pierre Menard</author>
<entry title="Entry 01">First Post</entry>
<entry title="Entry 02">Second Post Post</entry>
</feed>We can write a Xleb computation which is capable of parsing this structure in a handful of lines, here written in a slightly unusual way in order to show off some features of the library:
import Control.Applicative (optional)
import qualified Text.XML.Xleb as X
feed :: X.Xleb (String, Maybe String, [(String, String)])
feed = X.elem "feed" $ do
feedTitle <- X.child (X.byTag "title") $
X.contents X.string
feedAuthor <- optional $ X.child (X.byTag "author") $
X.contents X.string
feedEntries <- X.children (X.byTag "entry") entry
return (feedTitle, feedAuthor, feedEntries)
entry :: X.Xleb (String, String)
entry = (,) <$> X.attr "title" X.string <*> X.contents X.string
For a larger example, look at the Atom-parsing example, which is both more idiomatic and more complete.