Render XML using Thymeleaf

This post demonstrates how to render an XML to a file from a given XML template using Spring Boot and Thymeleaf.

No Web

If you are not going to use a web container for your project, you may exclude the embedded Tomcat libraries from it.

Please see Exclude Embedded Tomcat in Spring Boot when using Thymeleaf.

XML Template

You have an XML template with placeholders and you have it transformed or rendered with appropriate values.

Your Template

The following XML template has three (3) placeholders – lastname, firstname, and country.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<persons>
    <person>
        <fname th:text="${pinfo['lastname']}"></fname>
        <lname th:text="${pinfo['firstname']}"></lname>
        <country th:text="${pinfo['country']}"></country>
    </person>
</persons>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

</person>

</persons>

Spring Beans

You’ll need two @Bean’s – SpringResourceTemplateResolver and SpringTemplateEngine.

Using SpringResourceTemplateResolver

This bean configures the Thymeleaf template resolver.

@Bean
SpringResourceTemplateResolver xmlTemplateResolver(ApplicationContext appCtx) {
    SpringResourceTemplateResolver templateResolver = new SpringResourceTemplateResolver();
    templateResolver.setApplicationContext(appCtx);
    templateResolver.setPrefix("classpath:/templates/");
    templateResolver.setSuffix(".xml");
    templateResolver.setTemplateMode("XML");
    templateResolver.setCharacterEncoding("UTF-8");
    templateResolver.setCacheable(false);
    return templateResolver;
}

@Bean

SpringResourceTemplateResolver xmlTemplateResolver(ApplicationContext appCtx) {

SpringResourceTemplateResolver templateResolver = new SpringResourceTemplateResolver();

templateResolver.setApplicationContext(appCtx);

templateResolver.setPrefix("classpath:/templates/");

templateResolver.setSuffix(".xml");

templateResolver.setTemplateMode("XML");

templateResolver.setCharacterEncoding("UTF-8");

templateResolver.setCacheable(false);

return templateResolver;

}

Using SpringTemplateEngine

This bean simply sets the template resolver to the template engine. The resolver will be responsible for figuring out retrieve the template.

@Bean(name="springTemplateEngine")
SpringTemplateEngine templateEngine(ApplicationContext appCtx) {
    SpringTemplateEngine templateEngine = new SpringTemplateEngine();
    templateEngine.setTemplateResolver(xmlTemplateResolver(appCtx));
    return templateEngine;
}

@Bean(name="springTemplateEngine")

SpringTemplateEngine templateEngine(ApplicationContext appCtx) {

SpringTemplateEngine templateEngine = new SpringTemplateEngine();

templateEngine.setTemplateResolver(xmlTemplateResolver(appCtx));

return templateEngine;

}

The main class

This is where we supply values and invoke the template engine to use a particular XML template and render it with those values.

package com.turreta;

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.thymeleaf.context.Context;
import org.thymeleaf.spring4.SpringTemplateEngine;

@SpringBootApplication
public class ThymeleafDemoApplication {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		ApplicationContext appContext = SpringApplication.run(ThymeleafDemoApplication.class, args);

		// We used "springTemplateEngine" to name our SpringTemplateEngine
		SpringTemplateEngine engine = (SpringTemplateEngine)appContext.getBean("springTemplateEngine");

		Map<String, String> pinfo = new HashMap<>();
		Context context = new Context();
		context.setVariable("pinfo", pinfo);
		pinfo.put("lastname", "Jordan");
		pinfo.put("firstname", "Michael");
		pinfo.put("country", "USA");

		/*
		 *  Use a particular template passing the context that has
		 *  the values for the place-holders.
		 */
		String content = engine.process("person-details", context);

		// Rendered XML
		System.out.println(content);
	}
}

package com.turreta;

import java.util.HashMap;

import java.util.Map;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;

import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;

import org.thymeleaf.context.Context;

import org.thymeleaf.spring4.SpringTemplateEngine;

@SpringBootApplication

public class ThymeleafDemoApplication {

public static void main(String[] args) {

ApplicationContext appContext = SpringApplication.run(ThymeleafDemoApplication.class, args);

// We used "springTemplateEngine" to name our SpringTemplateEngine

SpringTemplateEngine engine = (SpringTemplateEngine)appContext.getBean("springTemplateEngine");

Map<String, String> pinfo = new HashMap<>();

Context context = new Context();

context.setVariable("pinfo", pinfo);

pinfo.put("lastname", "Jordan");

pinfo.put("firstname", "Michael");

pinfo.put("country", "USA");

* Use a particular template passing the context that has

* the values for the place-holders.

String content = engine.process("person-details", context);

// Rendered XML

System.out.println(content);

}

Download the codes

Please download or fork the codes from https://github.com/Turreta/thymeleaf-render-xml-01