Question

I’m looking to replace escaped XML sections with CDATA blocks, mainly to improve the readability of XML that unfortunately has to be read by a human.

// Input
def xml = '''
<search>
  <search-query>
    &lt;nested/&lt;
    &lt;xml/&lt;
  </search-query>
</search>
'''

def search = new XmlParser().parseText(xml)
def query = search."search-query"
query.replaceNode() {
  "search-query"() {
    // TODO how can I add a CDATA section here?
    //yieldUnescaped("<![CDATA[${query.text()}]]>")
  }
}

new XmlNodePrinter(preserveWhitespace:true).print(search)

// Expected
'''
<search>
  <search-query>
    <![CDATA[<nested/>
    <xml/>]]>
  </search-query>
</search>
'''

• Performance is not important
• I want to be able to use CDATA on only certain elements

Answer 1

Use this XSLT transformation:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output cdata-section-elements="search-query"/>
<xsl:template match="/"><xsl:copy-of select="."/></xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

You can replace cdata-section-elements with a space-separated list of element names.