XBA parsing and update with Excel VBA - excel

Question

I'm trying to make an XML parser/updater through Excel VBA.
First of all, I have been going back and forth between Excel VBA and Python but it seemed like Excel VBA was a better option to me.
However, I am open to any method really so please let me know if anyone has a different suggestion that would work better.
So, what I want to do with this application.
Parse XML and note the information on Excel format
I need name and the value of each attributes along with the text value of each node
After getting the information in the Excel format, I want to be able to revise values and output back to the XML format
So, in a nutshell, I am really aiming for a XML editor I guess?
But I am stuck at a few issues from the startline.
Here's a brief implementation of the XML parsing portion:
'load xml document
Set xmlDoc = CreateObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument.6.0")
xmlDoc.async = False
xmlDoc.validateOnParse = False
xmlDoc.Load(xmlFilepath)
'get document elements
Set xmlDocElement = xmlDoc.DocumentElement
Debug.Print xmlDocElement.xml
For i = 0 To xmlDocElement.ChildNodes.Length - 1
Debug.Print xmlDocElement.ChildNodes(i).xml
For j = 0 To xmlDocElement.ChildNodes(i).Attributes.Length - 1
Debug.Print xmlDocElement.ChildNodes(i).Attributes.Item(j).Name
Debug.Print xmlDocElement.ChildNodes(i).Attributes.Item(j).Value
Next j
Debug.Print xmlDocElement.ChildNodes(i).Text
Next i
The above method works well more or less with an exception for two conditions, so far at least.
XML file cannot be loaded if the text includes &/>/<
XML file cannot be loaded if it includes more than 1 highest parent node.
Text including &/>/< sample:
<parenttag>
<childtag>I love mac&cheese</childtag>
</parenttag>
The answer I found online was quite conclusive:
Revise the text so that it does not use &/>/<.
But I cannot modify the text and need to keep the current format.
Any way to bypass this?
More than 1 highest parent node sample:
<parenttag>
<childtag>Text</childtag>
</parenttag>
<differenttag>
<childtag>Some other text</childtag>
</differenttag>
XML Load does not work with multiple parent tags in 1 XML file.
And again, I cannot modify the XML file content, so I need a way around the load error.
I also want to note that I have initially started this project
by reading XML file as a text and process line by line.
But, this did not work well with multi-line content
and thus trying to figure out a way to process XML file properly.
This question really includes multiple portions but I would really appreciate if I can get any help.

Answer 1

The issue is that any XML parser will only accept valid XML. And
<childtag>I love mac&cheese</childtag>
is just no valid XML. It should be encoded as
<childtag>I love mac&cheese</childtag>
So that is what you need to fix. You can only work with a standard (like XML standard) if everyone follow the XML standard rules and produces valid XML. Otherwise your code might look like XML but it is no XML (until it is valid).
Also multiple root elements is not allowed in XML. If it has multiple roots then it is no XML. So to get out of your issue the only thing you can do is fix those issues before loading the file into a parser. For example you can add a root tag to make your multiple parents become childs of that root:
<myroot>
<parenttag>
<childtag>Text</childtag>
</parenttag>
<differenttag>
<childtag>Some other text</childtag>
</differenttag>
</myroot>
And & that are not encoded yet need to be changed to & to make them valid.
The only other option is to write your own parser to parse that custom files which are not XML. But that will not be possible in 2 lines of code as you will need to develop a parser for your NON-XLM files.