XML Formatter

XML Formatter converts minified or messy XML into a readable, well-formed document. It is aimed at developers, QA engineers, and system administrators who need consistent indentation and line breaks to understand structure, verify correctness, and compare versions. The tool preserves content such as comments and CDATA, and it retains the original semantic order of elements and attributes to ensure diffs remain meaningful. It does not perform schema validation by default.
Internally, the tool parses the input using a standards-compliant XML parser and then serializes the parsed tree with a configurable indentation size (2 or 4 spaces). The algorithm maintains the order of elements and attributes, prints opening and closing tags, and emits self-closing tags for empty elements. Comments and CDATA are preserved where present.
Primary users include software engineers, IT operations, and data practitioners who frequently exchange XML via APIs, configuration files, or logs. Unique value lies in safe, deterministic formatting that preserves semantics, a straightforward option set for indentation, and robust handling of namespaces and entities while avoiding external entity expansion.
Use cases cover formatting fragments for diffs, reformatting entire documents, and preparing XML payloads for reviews. Core features include deterministic indentation, preservation of DOCTYPE, optional minified output, and support for large documents. The tool is designed to integrate into pipelines that require consistent XML presentation.