Parse nested xml_children in R with rvest/xml2

parse_nested.R

parse_nested <- function(x, prefix = ''){
  kids = x %>% xml_children()
  ind = which(sapply(kids, xml_length) != 0)
  if(!length(ind)){
    return(setNames(kids %>% xml_text(), 
                    paste0(prefix,kids %>% xml_name())))
  }
  nested = parse_nested(kids[ind], 
                        prefix = paste0(prefix, kids[ind] %>% xml_name(), "_"))
  unnested = setNames(kids[-ind] %>% xml_text(), 
                      paste0(prefix, kids[-ind] %>% xml_name()))
  as.list(c(unnested, nested))
}

test.R

require(httr)
r <- POST("http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Export", 
          body = "pages=Euroswydd&offset=1&limit=2&action=submit")

require(rvest)
doc <- read_html(r)

# Binding via data.table::rbindlist (results in a data.table by default)
doc %>% 
  html_nodes("revision") %>% 
  lapply(parse_nested) %>% #Parse each revison seperately
  data.table::rbindlist(fill=TRUE) # rbind and fill
  
# Binding via plyr::rbind.fill (results in a data.frame by default)
doc %>% 
  html_nodes("revision") %>% 
  lapply(parse_nested) %>%
  lapply(function(x) data.frame(x)) %>% #Convert character-vector to data.frame
  plyr::rbind.fill() # rbind and fill

I also posted this here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36100062/xml-access-nested-items-with-same-name/36101250#36101250