Converting s-expressions to XML

[Josef Wolf]

Hello,

I am trying to write a (simple) function to convert s-expressions to XML.
I've come up with following function, which (somehow) works:

  (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
  (use-modules (ice-9 pretty-print))
  
  (define atom?
    (lambda (x)
      (and (not (pair? x)) (not (null? x)))))
  
  (define (indent string count)
    (if (< count 1)
        ""
        (string-append string (indent string (- count 1)))))
  
  (define (walklist expr level)
    (if (null? expr)
        '()
        (begin
          (sexp->xml (car expr) (+ level 1))
          (walklist (cdr expr) level))))
  
  (define (unknown->string expr)
    (let ((s (open-output-string)))
      (display expr s)
      (get-output-string s)))
  
  (define (sexp->xml expr . params)
    (let ((level (if (null? params) 0 (car params))))
      (cond
       ((atom? expr)
        (simple-format #t "~A~A\n" (indent "  " level) expr))
  
       ((list? (car expr))
        (sexp->xml (car expr) (+ level 1))
        (walklist (cdr expr) level))
  
  ;     ((pair? expr)
  ;      (simple-format #t "~A~A\n" (indent "  " level) (car expr))
  ;      (simple-format #t "~A~A\n" (indent "  " level) (cdr expr)))
  
       (#t
        (let ((s  (unknown->string (car expr))))
          (simple-format #t "~A~A~A~A\n" (indent "  " level) "<" s ">")
          (walklist (cdr expr) level)
          (simple-format #t "~A~A~A~A\n" (indent "  " level) "</" s ">"))))))
  
  
  (sexp->xml '(person
               (name "myself")
               (address
                (street "somestreet" 2)
                (town 1234 "thistown")
                (country "wonderland")
                (test 'a b)
;                (test1 . asd)
                (test2 '(asd "asd")))))


While this seems to work, it has some drawbacks, which I can not figure out
how to get rid of them:

 - It doesn't work on pairs. When I uncomment the case which checks for pairs,
   the result is no longer XML. Instead, it looks more like the output of
   (display)

 - There is no way to tell symbols from strings in the XML output.

 - I'd like atoms to be enclosed into its tags without any whitespace. While
   it is easy to get rid of the indentation and the trailing newline, I can't
   figure out how to get rid of the newline that comes behind the opening tag

Any hints?

BTW: In addition, I'd appreciate any hints how to make this thing more
     scheme'ish. I think there is lots of potential for improvement here.