Class Format
Page Summary
The Format class is used for outputting an XML document with customizable formatting options.
You can format an entire XML Document or a specific Element node into a string.
Formatting options can be set for encoding, indent strings, line separators, and whether to omit the XML declaration or encoding.
Methods like
setEncoding(),setIndent(),setLineSeparator(),setOmitDeclaration(), andsetOmitEncoding()allow for chaining to configure the format.
A formatter for outputting an XML document, with three pre-defined formats that can be furthercustomized.
// Log an XML document with specified formatting options.constxml='<root><a><b>Text!</b><b>More text!</b></a></root>';constdocument=XmlService.parse(xml);constoutput=XmlService.getCompactFormat().setLineSeparator('\n').setEncoding('UTF-8').setIndent(' ').format(document);Logger.log(output);
Methods
| Method | Return type | Brief description |
|---|---|---|
format(document) | String | Outputs the givenDocument as a formatted string. |
format(element) | String | Outputs the givenElement node as a formatted string. |
set | Format | Sets the character encoding that the formatter should use. |
set | Format | Sets the string used to indent child nodes relative to their parents. |
set | Format | Sets the string to insert whenever the formatter would normally insert a line break. |
set | Format | Sets whether the formatter should omit the XML declaration, such as<?xml version="1.0"encoding="UTF-8"?>. |
set | Format | Sets whether the formatter should omit the encoding in the XML declaration, such as theencoding field in<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>. |
Detailed documentation
format(document)
format(element)
setEncoding(encoding)
Sets the character encoding that the formatter should use. Theencoding argument mustbe an accepted XML encoding likeISO-8859-1,US-ASCII,UTF-8, orUTF-16.
// Log an XML document with encoding that does not support certain special// characters.constxml='<root><a><b>ಠ‿ಠ</b><b>ಠ‿ಠ</b></a></root>';constdocument=XmlService.parse(xml);constoutput=XmlService.getRawFormat().setEncoding('ISO-8859-1').format(document);Logger.log(output);
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
encoding | String | the encoding to use |
Return
Format — the formatter, for chaining
setIndent(indent)
Sets the string used to indent child nodes relative to their parents. Setting an indent otherthannull will cause the formatter to insert a line break after every node.
// Log an XML document with each child node indented four spaces.constxml='<root><a><b>Text!</b><b>More text!</b></a></root>';constdocument=XmlService.parse(xml);constoutput=XmlService.getCompactFormat().setIndent(' ').format(document);Logger.log(output);
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
indent | String | the indent to use |
Return
Format — the formatter, for chaining
setLineSeparator(separator)
Sets the string to insert whenever the formatter would normally insert a line break. The threepre-defined formatters have different conditions under which they insert a line break. Thedefault line separator is\r\n.
// Log an XML document with several spaces and a pipe character in place of line// breaks.constxml='<root><a><b>Text!</b><b>More text!</b></a></root>';constdocument=XmlService.parse(xml);constoutput=XmlService.getRawFormat().setLineSeparator(' | ').format(document);Logger.log(output);
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
separator | String | the separator to use |
Return
Format — the formatter, for chaining
setOmitDeclaration(omitDeclaration)
Sets whether the formatter should omit the XML declaration, such as<?xml version="1.0"encoding="UTF-8"?>.
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
omit | Boolean | true to omit the XML declaration;false to include it |
Return
Format — the formatter, for chaining
setOmitEncoding(omitEncoding)
Sets whether the formatter should omit the encoding in the XML declaration, such as theencoding field in<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>.
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
omit | Boolean | true to omit the encoding in the XML declaration;false to include it |
Return
Format — the formatter, for chaining
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Last updated 2025-12-11 UTC.