Want Groovy MarkupBuilder() Equivalent to JSONBuilder() for Objects - json

Question

Goal:
Given the myInfoObject definition below, I wish to be able to do this:
println new groovy.xml.MarkupBuilder(myInfoObject).toPrettyString()
Premise:
The following is one of the most amazing and convenient features of Groovy for my use cases: Brilliant dynamic serializing of complex nested objects into sensible JSON. Just pass the object, and get the JSON.
Example - A simple Map within a Map
import groovy.json.*
def myInfoMap = [
firstname : 'firstname',
lastname : 'lastname',
relatives : [
mother : "mom",
father : "dad"
]
]
myInfoJson = new JsonBuilder(myInfoMap)
//One line, straight to JSON object, no string writer/parser conversions
//Works on any object, extremely elegant, even handles deep nesting
//Alternatively, add .toPrettyString() for the string representation
Returns:
{
"firstname": "firstname",
"lastname": "lastname",
"relatives": {
"mother": "mom",
"father": "dad"
}
}
I have read through all the MarkupBuilder examples and docs I could find, and there does not seem to be any equivalent for XML. Here is the closest I could find, it is not nearly the same.
http://www.leveluplunch.com/groovy/examples/build-xml-from-map-with-markupbuilder/
XML and JSON are fundamentally different, but it's still common for objects to be represented by XML in a similar fashion. An XML equivalent would require at least one optional parameter specifying how the data should be represented, but I think a sensible default would be something like:
<myInfoMap>
<firstname>firstname</firstname>
<lastname>lastname</lastname>
<relatives>
<relative>
<mother>mom</mother>
</relative>
<relative>
<father>dad</father>
</relative>
</relatives>
</myInfoMap>
...Which has to be built manually with intimate knowledge of the structure like so...
def writer = new StringWriter()
def builder = new groovy.xml.MarkupBuilder(writer)
builder.myInfoMap {
myInfoMap.each{key, value ->
if (value instanceof Map){
"${key}"{
value.each{key2, value2 ->
"${key[0..key.size()-2]}"{
"${key2}" "${value2}"
}
}
}
}else{
"${key}" "${value}"
}
}
}
println writer.toString()
I even tried to be clever and make it a bit dynamic, but you can see how far from the JSONBuilder example it is, even in a simple case.
If this is currently impossible and not on anybody's radar, I will submit my first JIRA ticket to the Groovy project as a feature request. Just want to be sure before I do. Please just comment if you think this is the next step.

Answer 1

Try grails.converters.XML. In your case:
def myInfoMap = [
firstname: 'firstname',
lastname : 'lastname',
relatives: [
mother: "mom",
father: "dad"
]
]
println new grails.converters.XML(myInfoMap)
would result in:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<map>
<entry key="firstname">firstname</entry>
<entry key="lastname">lastname</entry>
<entry key="relatives">
<entry key="mother">mom</entry>
<entry key="father">dad</entry>
</entry>
</map>

Answer 2

Sorry I may be wrong but XmlUtil.serialize I think covers what you want.
MrHaki: groovy-goodness-pretty-print-xml
I did some work a while back that I was going to release as a plugin, I didn't release it in the end. Got side tracked with dns on the fly update which didn't end up working. Anyhow process xml controller and follow gsp view for it. But I think MrHaki has put it a lot more elegantly and has some really good examples