Cheap XML Append In Perl

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        Here is a really cheap way in Perl to append an XML fragment to an existing XML doc. It appends it just before the last closing tag. Note that there is no validation or well-formedness checking. Use at your own risk. That said, it can be handy if you know that your XML is going to be OK.

#!/usr/bin/perl

sub xappend(\$$) { ${$_[0]} =~ s/(<\/[^>]+>\s*)$/$_[1]$1/s }

$a = "<doc><item>foo</item></doc>";
xappend($a,"<item>bar</item>");

print $a; # prints <doc><item>foo</item><item>bar</item></doc>

Tags:
• Perl
• XML