method

to_xml

Importance_3
Ruby on Rails latest stable (v7.1.3.2) - 1 note - Class: ActiveRecord::Base
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  • What's this?

Method deprecated or moved

This method is deprecated or moved on the latest stable version. The last existing version (v1.1.6) is shown here.

These similar methods exist in v7.1.3.2:

to_xml(options = {}) public

Builds an XML document to represent the model. Some configuration is availble through options, however more complicated cases should use Builder.

By default the generated XML document will include the processing instruction and all object’s attributes. For example: 

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <topic>
    <title>The First Topic</title>
    <author-name>David</author-name>
    <id type="integer">1</id>
    <approved type="boolean">false</approved>
    <replies-count type="integer">0</replies-count>
    <bonus-time type="datetime">2000-01-01T08:28:00+12:00</bonus-time>
    <written-on type="datetime">2003-07-16T09:28:00+1200</written-on>
    <content>Have a nice day</content>
    <author-email-address>david@loudthinking.com</author-email-address>
    <parent-id></parent-id>
    <last-read type="date">2004-04-15</last-read>
  </topic>

This behaviour can be controlled with :only, :except, and :skip_instruct for instance: 

  topic.to_xml(:skip_instruct => true, :except => [ :id, bonus_time, :written_on, replies_count ])

  <topic>
    <title>The First Topic</title>
    <author-name>David</author-name>
    <approved type="boolean">false</approved>
    <content>Have a nice day</content>
    <author-email-address>david@loudthinking.com</author-email-address>
    <parent-id></parent-id>
    <last-read type="date">2004-04-15</last-read>
  </topic>

To include first level associations use :include 

  firm.to_xml :include => [ :account, :clients ]

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <firm>
    <id type="integer">1</id>
    <rating type="integer">1</rating>
    <name>37signals</name>
    <clients>
      <client>
        <rating type="integer">1</rating>
        <name>Summit</name>
      </client>
      <client>
        <rating type="integer">1</rating>
        <name>Microsoft</name>
      </client>
    </clients>
    <account>
      <id type="integer">1</id>
      <credit-limit type="integer">50</credit-limit>
    </account>
  </firm>
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March 24, 2009
1 thank

New and improved version

As this method is now deprecated, check the documentation for the new version (adds some more options), which gets included via a module:

ActiveRecord::Serialization#to_xml