How convert text into XML using perl? - perl

Question

input text file contain the following:
....
ponies B-pro
were I-pro
used I-pro
A O
report O
of O
indirect B-cd
were O
. O
...
output XML file
<sen>
<base id="pro">
<w id="1">ponies</w>
<w id="2">were</w>
<w id="3">were</w>
</base>A report of
<base id="cd">indirect</base> were
</sen>
i want to make an XML file by reading the text file, B- means the begining of my tag and I- means an include words inside the tag while "O" means outside the base tag which means it only exist in the tag.
i try the following codes:
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
open(my $f, "input.txt") or die "Can't";
open(my $o, ">output.xml") or die "Can't";
my $c;
sub read_line {
my $fh = shift;
if ($fh and my $line = <$fh>) {
chomp($line);
my #words = split(/\t/, $line);
my $word = $words[0];
my $group = $words[1];
if($word eq "."){
return;
}
else{
if($group ne 'O'){
my #b = split(/\-/, $group);
if($b[0] eq 'B'){
my $e = "<e id=\"";
$e .= " . $b[1] . "\">";
$e .= $word . "</e>";
return $e;
}
if($b[0] eq 'I'){
my $w = "<w id=\"";
$w .= $c . "\">";
$w .= $word . "</w>";
$c++;
return $w;
}
}
else{
$c = 2;
return $word;
}
}
}
return;
}
sub get_text(){
my $txt = "";
my $r = read_line($f);
while($r){
if($r =~ m/[[:punct:]]/){
chop($txt);
$txt .= " " . $r . " ";
}
else{
$txt .= $r . " ";
}
$r = read_line($f);
}
chop($txt);
return "<sen>" . $txt . ".</sen>";
}
instead im getting as output:
<sen>
<base id="pro"> ponies </base>
<w id="2">were</w>
<w id="3">were</w>
A report of
<base id="cd">indirect</base> were
</sen>
i really need help.
Thanks

Answer 1

Writing XML "by hand" will only get you in trouble. Use a module from CPAN.
In your case, I would first put the data in a proper Perl data structure (maybe a hash containing some arrays, or something similar) and then using a module (i.e. XML::Simple for starters) to output to a file.

Answer 2

As Javs said, you want to use a module rather than do this by hand. For your purposes, since you have mixed content, I recommend XML::LibXML. Here is an example I made to test that you can indeed to mixed content like you've got:
use XML::LibXML;
my $doc = XML::LibXML::Document->new();
my $root = $doc->createElement('html');
$doc->setDocumentElement($root);
my $body = $doc->createElement('body');
$root->appendChild($body);
my $link = $doc->createElement('a');
$link->setAttribute('href', 'http://google.com');
$link->appendText('Google');
$body->appendChild($link);
$body->appendText('Inline Text');
print $doc->toString;