Parsing XML Attributes with Boost

File to be parsed, pets.xml

<pets>
    <pet type="cat" name="Garfield" weight="4Kg">
        <something name="test" value="*"/>
         <something name="demo" value="@"/>
    </pet>
    <pet type="dog" name="Milu" weight="7Kg">
         <something name="test1" value="$"/>
    </pet>
    <birds type="parrot">
        <bird name="african grey parrot"/>
        <bird name="amazon parrot"/>
    </birds>
</pets>

code:

// DemoPropertyTree.cpp : Defines the entry point for the console application.
//Prerequisite boost library

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <boost/property_tree/xml_parser.hpp>
#include <boost/property_tree/ptree.hpp>
#include <boost/foreach.hpp>
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
using namespace boost;
using namespace boost::property_tree;

void processPet(ptree subtree)
{
    BOOST_FOREACH(ptree::value_type petChild,subtree.get_child(""))
    {
        //processing attributes of element pet
        if(petChild.first=="<xmlattr>")
        {
            BOOST_FOREACH(ptree::value_type petAttr,petChild.second.get_child(""))
            {
                cout<<petAttr.first<<"="<<petAttr.second.data()<<endl;
            }
        }
        //processing child element of pet(something)
        else if(petChild.first=="something")
        {
            BOOST_FOREACH(ptree::value_type somethingChild,petChild.second.get_child(""))
            {
                //processing attributes of element something
                if(somethingChild.first=="<xmlattr>")
                {
                    BOOST_FOREACH(ptree::value_type somethingAttr,somethingChild.second.get_child(""))
                    {
                        cout<<somethingAttr.first<<"="<<somethingAttr.second.data()<<endl;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
void processBirds(ptree subtree)
{
    BOOST_FOREACH(ptree::value_type birdsChild,subtree.get_child(""))
    {
        //processing attributes of element birds
        if(birdsChild.first=="<xmlattr>")
        {
            BOOST_FOREACH(ptree::value_type birdsAttr,birdsChild.second.get_child(""))
            {
                cout<<birdsAttr.first<<"="<<birdsAttr.second.data()<<endl;
            }
        }
        //processing child element of birds(bird)
        else if(birdsChild.first=="bird")
        {
            BOOST_FOREACH(ptree::value_type birdChild,birdsChild.second.get_child(""))
            {
                //processing attributes of element bird
                if(birdChild.first=="<xmlattr>")
                {
                    BOOST_FOREACH(ptree::value_type birdAttr,birdChild.second.get_child(""))
                    {
                        cout<<birdAttr.first<<"="<<birdAttr.second.data()<<endl;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{

    const std::string XML_PATH1 = "C:/Users/10871/Desktop/pets.xml";
    ptree pt1;
    boost::property_tree::read_xml( XML_PATH1, pt1  );
     cout<<"********************************************"<<endl;
    BOOST_FOREACH( ptree::value_type const& topNodeChild, pt1.get_child( "pets" ) ) 
    {
        ptree subtree = topNodeChild.second;
        if( topNodeChild.first == "pet" ) 
        {
             processPet(subtree);
             cout<<"********************************************"<<endl;
        }
        else if(topNodeChild.first=="birds")
        {
            processBirds(subtree);
             cout<<"********************************************"<<endl;
        }

    }
    getchar();
    return 0;
}

The output is shown here: output

The problem with your program is located in this line:

const ptree & attributes = formats.get_child(at, empty_ptree());

With this line you are asking to get the child pet.<xmlattr> from pets and you do this 3 times independently of whichever f you are traversing. Following this article I'd guess that what you need to use is:

const ptree & attributes = f.second.get_child("<xmlattr>", empty_ptree());

The full code, that works with both your xml files, is:

#define ATTR_SET ".<xmlattr>"
#define XML_PATH1 "./pets.xml"

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <boost/foreach.hpp>
#include <boost/property_tree/ptree.hpp>
#include <boost/property_tree/xml_parser.hpp>

using namespace std;
using namespace boost;
using namespace boost::property_tree;

const ptree& empty_ptree(){
    static ptree t;
    return t;
}

int main() {
    ptree tree;
    read_xml(XML_PATH1, tree);
    const ptree & formats = tree.get_child("pets", empty_ptree());
    BOOST_FOREACH(const ptree::value_type & f, formats){
        string at = f.first + ATTR_SET;
        const ptree & attributes = f.second.get_child("<xmlattr>", empty_ptree());
        cout << "Extracting attributes from " << at << ":" << endl;
        BOOST_FOREACH(const ptree::value_type &v, attributes){
            cout << "First: " << v.first.data() << " Second: " << v.second.data() << endl;
        }
    }
}

Without ever using this feature so far, I would suspect that boost::property_tree XML parser isn't a common XML parser, but expects a certain schema, where you have exactly one specific tag for one specific property.

You might prefer to use other XML parsers that provides parsing any XML schema, if you want to work with XML beyond the boost::property_tree capabilities. Have a look at e.g. Xerces C++ or Poco XML.