Not able to display XML in Wordpress post

Question

If you want to display an XML fragment in a WordPress post - how do you do that?

Suppose you want to display this:

<family>
    <dad>whatever</dad>
    <mom>whatever</mom>
</family>

Using the [sourcecode language="xml"] does not help, as it mangles up the XML. Also, I believe, plugins cannot be used with free version of WordPress ( i.e wordpress.com ) - so, probably that won't be an option.

Using HTML <pre> tag works, but it does not give correct look and feel. Can any one show me how they have done it?

Answer 1

The wordpress codex has a whole page about writing code in your posts.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Writing_Code_in_Your_Posts

Their suggestion is to use html entity codes within <pre> or <code> tags

<family>
    <dad>whatever</dad>
    <mom>whatever</mom>
</family>

This could be tedious if you have a lot of code to show in your post. I suggest writing a small shortcode that would do this for you.

<?php
function xml_shortcode( $atts, $content ) {
    return '<pre>' . htmlentities( $content ) . '</pre>';
}

add_shortcode( 'xml', `xml_shortcode` );
?>

How to use your shortcode in a post

[xml]your code here[/xml]