pugixml is a C++ XML processing library, which consists of a DOM-like interface with rich traversal/modification capabilities, an extremely fast XML parser which constructs the DOM tree from an XML file/buffer, and an XPath 1.0 implementation for complex data-driven tree queries. Full Unicode support is also available, with Unicode interface variants and conversions between different Unicode encodings (which happen automatically during parsing/saving).

pugixml is used by a lot of projects, both open-source and proprietary, for performance and easy-to-use interface.

Documentation for the current release of pugixml is available on-line as two separate documents:

• Quick-start guide, that aims to provide enough information to start using the library;
• Complete reference manual, that describes all features of the library in detail.

You’re advised to start with the quick-start guide; however, many important library features are either not described in it at all or only mentioned briefly; if you require more information you should read the complete manual.

You can build and install pugixml using vcpkg dependency manager:

git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
cd vcpkg
./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh
./vcpkg integrate install
./vcpkg install pugixml

The pugixml port in vcpkg is kept up to date by Microsoft team members and community contributors. If the version is out of date, please create an issue or pull request on the vcpkg repository.

Here's an example of how code using pugixml looks; it opens an XML file, goes over all Tool nodes and prints tools that have a Timeout attribute greater than 0:

#include "pugixml.hpp"
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    pugi::xml_document doc;
    pugi::xml_parse_result result = doc.load_file("xgconsole.xml");
    if (!result)
        return -1;
        
    for (pugi::xml_node tool: doc.child("Profile").child("Tools").children("Tool"))
    {
        int timeout = tool.attribute("Timeout").as_int();
        
        if (timeout > 0)
            std::cout << "Tool " << tool.attribute("Filename").value() << " has timeout " << timeout << "\n";
    }
}

And the same example using XPath:

#include "pugixml.hpp"
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    pugi::xml_document doc;
    pugi::xml_parse_result result = doc.load_file("xgconsole.xml");
    if (!result)
        return -1;
        
    pugi::xpath_node_set tools_with_timeout = doc.select_nodes("/Profile/Tools/Tool[@Timeout > 0]");
    
    for (pugi::xpath_node node: tools_with_timeout)
    {
        pugi::xml_node tool = node.node();
        std::cout << "Tool " << tool.attribute("Filename").value() <<
            " has timeout " << tool.attribute("Timeout").as_int() << "\n";
    }
}

This library is available to anybody free of charge, under the terms of MIT License (see LICENSE.md).