Removing empty groups from a SOAP request in jMeter - soap

Question

I need to preprocess a SOAP request (using HTTP request) populated using a CSV dataset in jMeter.
Some of the binded variables are null which is expected, but the service I am testing performs validation on these elements as well.
There was a similar question in the past (JMeter - Remove empty elements in SOAP request), but in my case I am not looking to only clear the blank element I want to clear the whole block.
Example:
I want this
<table>
<name>businessLicenceGroup</name>
<tableRow>
<sequence>1</sequence>
<field>
<sequence>0</sequence>
<name>authority</name>
<value>AD01</value>
</field>
<field>
<sequence>1</sequence>
<name>licenceNumber</name>
<value></value>
</field>
</tableRow>
</table>
to be
<table>
<name>businessLicenceGroup</name>
<tableRow>
<sequence>1</sequence>
<field>
<sequence>0</sequence>
<name>authority</name>
<value>AD01</value>
</field>
</tableRow>
</table>

Answer 1

The reference code which looks for an empty objects and removes their parent nodes would be something like:
def before = prev.getResponseDataAsString()
log.info('Before: ' + before)
def xml = new groovy.util.XmlParser().parseText(before)
def nodesWithoutText = xml.'**'.findAll { it.name() && !it.text() }
def removeNode = { node ->
def field = node.parent()
def tableRow = field.parent()
tableRow.remove(field)
}
nodesWithoutText.each{removeNode(it)}
log.info('After: ' + groovy.xml.XmlUtil.serialize(xml))
The above code assumes that your example XML comes as the response of a Sampler and needs to be put into JSR223 PostProcessor
Demo:
References:
Groovy: Processing XML
Apache Groovy - Why and How You Should Use It

Answer 2

Maybe you can use this groovy script for JSR223 PreProcessor. It's based on following articles. Regard. that the result has not the same format like the input xml.
Modifying / Removing nodes with Groovy
Groovy Goodness: Pretty Print XML
I found this after posting the answer. It might also help.
Groovy XmlSlurper replace node with given child node value
import groovy.xml.*
def xml = """
<table>
<name>businessLicenceGroup</name>
<tableRow>
<sequence>1</sequence>
<field>
<sequence>0</sequence>
<name>authority</name>
<value>AD01</value>
</field>
<field>
<sequence>1</sequence>
<name>licenceNumber</name>
<value></value>
</field>
</tableRow>
</table>
"""
log.info("XML before removing Node: " + xml);
def table = new XmlParser().parseText(xml);
log.info("Parsed XML before removing Node: " + table);
log.info("Node to remove: " + table.tableRow.field[1]);
// remove the node by replacement with empty element
table.tableRow.field[1].replaceNode {};
// Create Output
log.info("Parsed XML after removing Node: " + table);
def xmlOutput = new StringWriter()
def xmlNodePrinter = new XmlNodePrinter(new PrintWriter(xmlOutput))
xmlNodePrinter.print(table)
log.info("Parsed XML after removing Node: " + xmlOutput.toString());