QXmlStreamReader reads empty text, document is for sure not empty - c++

Question

I'm using QXmlStreamReader and QXmlStreamWriter to read and write XML files in my application.
My example XML file looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Senders>
<Sender>
<Name>COMPANY XYZ</Name>
<Street>Random</Street>
<BuildingNumber>23D</BuildingNumber>
<LocalNumber>123</LocalNumber>
<CityCode>3434-21</CityCode>
<City>New York</City>
</Sender>
</Senders>
It was written with my code. Basically, I do not have problem with writing XML files but have some troubles trying to read them after writing. Here's my code, which prints out empty values (XML file is not empty).
#include "mainwindow.h"
#include <QApplication>
#include <QtCore>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
QApplication a(argc, argv);
QFile file("../data.xml");
if(file.open(QIODevice::WriteOnly | QIODevice::Text))
{
QXmlStreamWriter xmlWriter(&file);
xmlWriter.setAutoFormatting(true);
xmlWriter.writeStartDocument();
xmlWriter.writeStartElement("Senders");
xmlWriter.writeStartElement("Sender");
xmlWriter.writeTextElement("Name", "COMPANY XYZ");
xmlWriter.writeTextElement("Street", "Random");
xmlWriter.writeTextElement("BuildingNumber", "23D");
xmlWriter.writeTextElement("LocalNumber", "123");
xmlWriter.writeTextElement("CityCode", "3434-21");
xmlWriter.writeTextElement("City", "New York");
xmlWriter.writeEndElement();
xmlWriter.writeEndElement();
file.close();
}
QVector<QString> data;
if(file.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly | QIODevice::Text))
{
QXmlStreamReader xmlReader(&file);
while (!xmlReader.atEnd() && !xmlReader.hasError())
{
xmlReader.readNext();
if (xmlReader.isStartElement())
{
qDebug() << "element name: '" << xmlReader.name().toString() << "'"
<< ", text: '" << xmlReader.text().toString() << "'" << endl;
}
}
file.close();
}
return a.exec();
}
So what I'm doing wrong while reading my file?
The output I got:
element name: ' "Senders" ' , text: ' "" '
element name: ' "Sender" ' , text: ' "" '
element name: ' "Name" ' , text: ' "" '
element name: ' "Street" ' , text: ' "" '
element name: ' "BuildingNumber" ' , text: ' "" '
element name: ' "LocalNumber" ' , text: ' "" '
element name: ' "CityCode" ' , text: ' "" '
element name: ' "City" ' , text: ' "" '

Answer 1

When you are at StartElement token, you can only get this element's name, not it's value. You need to read further and get to Characters token to be able to read the element's value. You would also want to skip whitespace-only tokens:
while (!xmlReader.atEnd() && !xmlReader.hasError())
{
xmlReader.readNext();
//here we are at StartElement, so we can read the element's name
if (xmlReader.isStartElement())
{
qDebug() << "element name: '" << xmlReader.name().toString() << "'";
}
//here we are inside the element, so if it is not empty, we can read the element's value
else if(xmlReader.isCharacters() && !xmlReader.isWhitespace())
{
qDebug() << "element value: '" <<xmlReader.text().toString() << "'";
}
}