XML parser.R

#XML Parse
# install and load the necessary package
library(XML)
# Save the URL of the xml file in a variable

xml.url <- "http://www.w3schools.com/xml/plant_catalog.xml"
# Use the xmlTreePares-function to parse xml file directly from the web

xmlfile <- xmlTreeParse(xml.url)
# the xml file is now saved as an object you can easily work with in R:
class(xmlfile)
# Use the xmlRoot-function to access the top node
xmltop = xmlRoot(xmlfile)
# have a look at the XML-code of the first subnodes:
#print(xmltop)[1:2]
# To extract the XML-values from the document, use xmlSApply:

plantcat <- xmlSApply(xmltop, function(x) xmlSApply(x, xmlValue))


# Finally, get the data in a data-frame and have a look at the first rows and columns

plantcat_df <- data.frame(t(plantcat),row.names=NULL)
plantcat_df[1:5,1:4]