Using xml_replace leaves behind some formatting - r

Question

I am trying to replace some nodes of an XML document with text using the xml2 library in R. In the example below I'm trying to turn all the "name" nodes into text, but the final result still has the "<" and "/>" around the text.
library(xml2)
x <- read_xml(
"<scenario>
<event>
<dataProbeEvent>
<name>LogSurvResHigh</name>
</dataProbeEvent>
</event>
<event>
<accumulateEvent>
<name>SetSurvOut</name>
</accumulateEvent>
</event>
</scenario>")
x
> {xml_document}
<scenario>
[1] <event>\n <dataProbeEvent>\n <name>LogSurvResHigh</name>\n </dataProbeEvent>\n ...
[2] <event>\n <accumulateEvent>\n <name>SetSurvOut</name>\n </accumulateEvent>\n</ ...
namerefs <- xml_find_all(x, './/name')
replacements = namerefs %>%xml_text()
xml_replace(namerefs, replacements)
> {xml_document}
<scenario>
[1] <event>\n <dataProbeEvent>\n <LogSurvResHigh/>\n </dataProbeEvent>\n</event>
[2] <event>\n <accumulateEvent>\n <SetSurvOut/>\n </accumulateEvent>\n</event>
What I want it to look like is:
> {xml_document}
<scenario>
[1] <event>\n <dataProbeEvent>\n LogSurvResHigh\n </dataProbeEvent>\n</event>
[2] <event>\n <accumulateEvent>\n SetSurvOut\n </accumulateEvent>\n</event>

Answer 1

You should use the following:-
x <- as.character(x)
x_sub <- gsub("<name[^>]*>|<\\/name>","",x)
x <- read_xml(x_sub)
x
{xml_document}
<scenario>
[1] <event>\n <dataProbeEvent>\n LogSurvResHigh\n </dataProbeEvent>\n</event>
[2] <event>\n <accumulateEvent>\n SetSurvOut\n </accumulateEvent>\n</event>
This will remove ref-type="bibr" rid="CR8" kind of attributes from the name node.

Answer 2

XML documents are a type of nested data type a lot like a list in R. If you prune a node then all of the information in that node is lost. I find it generally easier to convert it to a flat data type (like a character vector) and then remove the information that isn't desired. It can then be converted back to XML if desired.
The alternative would be to use XML to locate the parent node that you want and then use xml_text to extract the text. But I believe this drops all newline characters.
x_char <- as.character(x)
x_noname <- gsub("<name>|<\\/name>","",x_char)
x_noname
x_noname <- read_xml(x_noname)
x_noname
# {xml_document}
# <scenario>
# [1] <event>\n <dataProbeEvent>\n LogSurvResHigh\n </dataProbeEvent>\n</event>
# [2] <event>\n <accumulateEvent>\n SetSurvOut\n </accumulateEvent>\n</event>