What's the most commonly used XML library for C++?

Question

I saw a few libraries through a quick Google search. What's generally the most commonly used XML implementation for C++?

I'm planning on using XML as a means for program configuration. I liked XML because I'll be making use of its tree-like structure. If you think you have a more suitable solution for this, feel free to mention it. I want something lightweight and simple. Maybe XML is too much?

Edit: Cross-platform would be preferable, but to answer a question, I'm programming this in Linux.

Answer 1

There are several out there:

Xercers   Big    http://xerces.apache.org/xerces-c/  
expat     small  http://expat.sourceforge.net/

I like expat. But that's a totally personal opinion.
I use it because it is small and it was simple to write a C++ wrapper for.

Xerces is like the full blown XML parser with all the knobs a whistles. But consequently it is slightly more complex to use.

Answer 2

Which os platform do you intend to use?

//Buzzz

Answer 3

See if TinyXML helps you

TinyXML is a simple, small, C++ XML parser that can be easily integrating into other programs.

Answer 4

Not quite the question you asked, but there are two major flavors of XML parsers, SAX and DOM.

SAX parsers are event driven parsers. As the parser sees various elements with the XML document (node, properties, etc.), the parser calls some function or method that you have defined.

DOM parsers on the other hand parse the entire XML document and return a tree structure that represents the entire document. Your code can then poke through the structure in any order it sees.

SAX parsers are more memory efficient because they do not need to represent the entire document in memory. DOM parsers are easier to work with because you are not limited to processing the document in a linear fashion.

Answer 5

I would recommend not using XML.

I know this is a matter of opinion but XML really clutters the information with a lot of tags. Also, even though it is human-readable, the clutter actually hampers readability (and I say it from experience since we have some 134 XML configuration files at the moment...). Furthermore, it is quite difficult to read because of the mix between attributes and plain-text. You never know which one you are going to need.

I would recommend using JSON, if you want a language that already has well-defined parsers.

For parsing, a simple look at json.org and you have a long list of C++ libraries.