Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with xml

How to merge data fields into a plain text file?

geekgirl397 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:04:23 -0800

Is there some way to do a "mail merge" type operation on plain text, xml or html files without using a word processor? I've been working on our company wiki and I want to bulk create a bunch of pages by merging certain field data from spreadsheets, csv files or other datasources into the template text files that I've created. The output should be XML or plain text.

I have a separate task where I have a simple html template that I'd like to populate with data pulled from a csv. The output needs to be standard, simple HTML (no funny MS Word markup)

I have access to MS Office, Open Office and Abiword but everything I've tried so far seems to "pollute" my files with word processor type formatting. (I am running KDE on Ubuntu 9.10, but I also have Win XP running as a virtual machine under Virtualbox - I have access to any version of the MS Office software, and obviously anything open source).

I'm sure there's some open source tool designed to merge text files. I'm not opposed to using a command line interface although I probably would prefer a GUI. My Google-fu is failing me on this one.

Any tips on how I should achieve this, or pointers to the tools I should be looking at?

thanks!

How do I incorporate a controlled vocabulary into my RELAX rng schema?

thewrongparty — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:03:27 -0800

[xmlschema filter] So, I'm trying to create a RELAX ng schema and I can't get my custom controlled vocabulary to validate! I'm a total n00b and I've been puzzling over this for a while, so I apologize if my question doesn't even make sense. So, I want to classify the documents I'm modeling according to the ICOM Vocabulary of Basic Terms for Cataloguing Costume. I could create an element that had a "choice" attribute and make a big list of terms as values: <value>dress</value><value>skirt</value> and so on.

But, the ICOM vocabulary is more complicated than. It breaks each garment down from general to specific, something like Library of Congress classifications. So, the final classification ends up being something like dress -- one piece -- additional optional pieces to complete the garment. And I'm having trouble expressing that hierarchy in XML in a way that validates. ( I get validation errors if I make children for values, or for making too many patterns, or for going straight from "start" to "value"...)

Help! Is there a way to make this work?

I know this question is pretty garbled. I'll be here at the computer all day if I need to clarify!

libxml2 + XPath + local-name()

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:28:07 -0800

Why does my XPath query need a local-name() call? Here is an XML document I'm trying to yank stuff out of:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<listallmycontainersresult xmlns="http://blah.blah.blah/">

<containers>

<container>

<name>abcd-1234</name>

<creationdate>2008-11-08T22:41:12.000Z</creationdate>

</container>

 ...

</containers>

</listallmycontainersresult>

I would have thought that the XPath query:

//container

would be enough to get an array of container nodes, but I actually need to send:

//*[local-name()='container']

Why is this more complex query required? Is there something I would need to do in order to be able to send a simpler query? I am using libxml2 to parse the XML document.

Applications for converting XML to Word / PDF?

UbuRoivas — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:51:19 -0800

Applications for converting XML to Word / PDF? I'm looking for an application that can convert multiple-record XML files with embedded (encoded) images into human-readable form - Word or PDF preferred.

Ideally, the application would be easily configurable as an end-user productivity tool, eg with a drag-n-drop interface for laying out which fields appear where on the output file (not unlike a mail merge).

Splitting the output into separate docs for each record in the XML would also be a bonus.

Currently, I'm taking a look at Altova Stylevision, but wondering if there are any other products that might also fit these requirements....?

DocBook and XML editor recommendations

ralan — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:02:35 -0800

DocBook/XML editor recommendations I am looking for an XML editor to use for creating technical documentation with DocBook. I'd like to know if anyone has any recommendations. So far, I've looked at XML Mind, XML Copy Editor, Serna, and XMLPad. Next on my list to try is OxYgen. I've also looked at a few file type plugins for Vim.

My ideal XML editor would meet the following requirements:

1. Cross-platform - I switch between Mac/Windows/Linux depending on context

2. Able to handle the conversions from DocBook to HTML/PDF/RTF, etc in the editor itself, without having to use an external program

3. The ability for me to directly edit the content and XML tags with tag completion. A WYSIWYG function would be a nice benefit, but is not an absolute requirement.

Cost is somewhat of a factor, but will not limit my choices. I'm willing to pay for a good editor. Free is always a plus, but sometimes you do get what you pay for.

Any recommendations are welcome, though. I realize that my ideal editor may not actually exist. I also realize that some of the above editors may do exactly what I want, and that I haven't spent enough time with the application yet to figure it out.

As a side question, if there are any DocBook books or tutorials that you might have found useful, please feel free to share. I've found a few online tutorials, but I'm always looking for more so I can expand my knowledge.

I need a simple CMS for managing flat xml files

grumblebee — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:15:58 -0800

I build Flash applications for a living. I generally make them configurable via an xml file. I'm looking for a quick and easy solution that would allow me to set up a form that clients could fill out when they want to update the xml. NOTE: everything needs to be hosted on the client's site, to which I often have limited access. So I don't want a solution that involves complex DB management. Say I've created a Flash app, and the client can skin it by entering color values in an XML file. Non-tech-savvy clients often get frightened by raw XML, so I'd like to start offering them simple CMSes that are customized to their particular config files. Some config files are super-simple, allowing my client so, say, just pick a background color and a video to play. Others are much more complex.

WHAT I DON'T WANT is anything that involves managing or setting up a database. My clients might not have access to one; the might not know how to manage one; they might not be able to give me access to me. So this all has to be based around flat files.

I also don't want an desktop app. I want something browser-based, so my clients can update the Flash app from anywhere.

Finally, I don't want anything that I have to host. This should be a solution that I can upload the to client's site and that they can manage from themselves. It should be password-protected so that other people can't much around with the Flash app's settings.

Ideally, what I'd like is something that can take my xml file (or a schema) and auto-generate an HTML-form based on it. And a simple PHP, Python or whatever script that can take the info they enter into the form and update the xml file.

Can You Search For XML Text?

netbros — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 03:41:31 -0800

Do Google and Bing spider XML pages? Some of my HTML pages link to other XML pages. Do Google, Bing and the other search engines index these XML pages?

XML sitemap to mindmap?

jeff1010 — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:01:45 -0800

A mind mapping tool that can import XML sitemaps? I have an XML sitemap. It's a very large site with lots of pages, and I need to be able to use an automated mindmapping software to show the relationship between pages visually.

I HAVE to be able to take notes on each page within the mindmapping software. (notate links to each page, etc.)

I'd LIKE to be able to paste/save images into each page as well. So that if I click on the "about" page I can see the actual screenshot within the mindmap.

Something like The Brain is ideal, because you can save screenshots to each item and see them right on click. But it doesn't let you import XML sitemaps.

Any ideas of such a tool?

Is it possible to grab XML across domains?

You Can't Tip a Buick — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:36:51 -0800

Trying to grab XML across domains, wondering if what I'm trying to do is even possible.. So, I'm working with a group that's sharing another group's Plone server -- and which doesn't have filesystem access on said server. We have data in XML files on another server, and what I'm trying to do is grab those XML files, transform them into something displayable using XSLT, and then display them. It's not possible (as far as I know) to do this on the server side, due to being on a shared server / not having filesystem access, but doing it on the client side is somewhat impossible-seeming itself, since if I try to bring in the data from the other server using the document() function I run into the predictable "access denied" messages from IE and Firefox (though, weirdly, not Safari). Is there any way to do what I'm trying to do here that will work in all modern browsers?

Apologies if I'm speaking gibberish; this problem is not in my usual field and I'm operating more or less at the edge of my understanding.

How can I help my coworkers create XML documents to store metadata?

gryftir — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:50:44 -0800

Generating XML documents help? I work with the county health department, and have been asked to come up with a way to create, store and manipulate metadata for various datasets we store internally on a network drive. Basically I think the simplest thing to do is to create an xml file stored in the same directory with any dataset. Preferably I can do this with infopath 2003 or free software, and using the Dublin Core standard for metadata. I've seen the 5 year old answers on Dublin Core Metadata from this Ask, but I need to let my coworkers create the data first, and that mostly covers storage/database solutions. Looking through various DC list archives hasn't been helpful. I realize that having an xml file for each dataset may make it hard to actually search and manipulate the data, but at least we'd be storing it somewhere in a standard form.

We have Office 2003 on all the relevant machines, to the best of my knowledge, and I think Infopath 2003 should be able to create forms which create xml compliant with dublin core (either simple or qualified, preferably the later). It would be rather difficult to have our IT department roll out any sort of complex IT solution or have a server setup with the authority I have. I could however use some sort of database file stored on the network drive.

I'd really prefer to have forms or generate the XML programatically, rather then having them hand edit a template or something. The idea is to make storing the data as smooth as possible.

Does anybody have any suggestions for me or strong useful resources that you can point me too? I'm not exactly sure how to take the XML schemas for Dublin Core and create a compliant form from it.

I'm not married to Dublin Core if there is another standard or to infopath 2003 if there is a better program that won't cost anything.

My mind is puny.

Skyanth — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:32:51 -0800

Could someone please point me in the right direction? I have an xml document that has been extended, and I need to override the xslt that transforms it to html with an import, but I have no idea where to start. The old xml document looks (simplified) like this:



<document>

<title>Title Text</title>

<para>Paragraph Text</para>

</document>

There was a whole body of xslt dealing with this (I'm talking thousands of lines of code here, it's really much more complicated than my stupid example leads to believe). Now the dtd has been extended and the xml looks as follows:



<document>

  <title>

   <container1>

      <container2>

        <block attr="1">Title Text for a</block>

        <block attr="2">Title Text for b</block>

      </container2>

    </container1>

  </title>

  <para>

    <container1>

      <container2>

        <block attr="1">Paragraph Text for a</block>

        <block attr="2">Paragraph Text for b</block>

      </container2>

    </container1>

  </para>

</document>

The idea is to now generate 2 html documents, one for case a and one for case b. So the whole body of xslt dealing with this document still applies, only I need to import an additional xslt file that tells the original xslt to ignore <container1> and <container2> and <block attr="1|2"> and then proceed as usual. But how? I've only hacked a bit of xslt up till now, so while I know how it works I don't actually have a solid base to work from.

I'll start learning it soon, but I need to get this done now...

working with a corrupted XML file

sparrows — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:01:23 -0800

Seeking any way to view the contents of a (possibly corrupted) XML file. It's the database file from a Mac app that manages plain-text notes. Please help me force a look at the human-readable text that's somehow inside this file. I hope I am just missing something basic.

The file is about 6MB and it has the extension .nbdb. The app that created it is called Mark/Space Notebook. I'm running Mac OS 10.4.11.

The result when I open the file with Text Edit is an XML document where most of the contents is just a stream of text like UAcgBlABoAGIA... (Details in the first answer below, if you need.)

More info, if helpful:
Mark/Space Notebook is the text-notes-management app that came with Missing Sync for BlackBerry, which I bought in 2007. Both the syncing and this notes app worked fine for a year. Then I stopped using the BlackBerry and I switched to a better notes-management app from another company. So I started manually transferring my notes from M/S NB to this new app, but I wasn't close to finished when, one day, M/S NB suddenly wouldn't start up. Instead, any attempt to open it resulted in the dialog, "Your database was created with a pre-release version of Notebook and cannot be opened."

After a long and frustrating experience with two tech support people -- including installing and reinstalling other versions of the app -- their conclusion was that there is no issue at all with app version; my database file is just corrupted. (Yes, the app can produce new, openable databases just fine, so I think the support guys are right and it is the file itself.)

Their only solution now is that I email them the file so they can open it and send me back the text it contains. I can't do that; this is confidential info I would never share with a stranger (even one who'd inspired trust already with consistently clueful communication, which these guys have not).

All my backups of the file produce the same error because I apparently don't have any from before whenever it was corrupted (yes, I have definitely learned a lesson about retaining old baks). The Blackberry itself is long since wiped and sold, so I can't just look at the copies of the notes that were on the BB.

But why would anyone /want/ to read my livejournal?

Newbornstranger — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:12:05 -0800

Inspired by the Tweetbook I've decided to use Lulu to make a print version of my high school-era livejournal. How do I easily turn the XML file with all of of my entries, comments, and associated metadata into something I can print? I have very little knowledge of html and virtually no knowledge of XML or CSS. All I want is to automate something that will say "The date goes in bold here, the entry goes here, and the comments are indented here". What should I start learning in order to make this happen?

How can I generate a text list of image filenames and dimensions on OS X?

joshwebb — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:28:12 -0800

How can I generate a text list of image filenames and dimensions on OS X? I have about 150 images and I would like to generate a tidy little text list of these images' filenames and dimensions (in pixels.)

Ultimately this will be uses to populate an XML file for use with an image gallery, if that helps at all.

I'm just trying to avoid having to manually write out each individual width and height.

I'm running Leopard (10.5.6) and have access to Adobe CS4 software, but as far as I can tell this isn't possible with something like Bridge and Googling has failed me.

Any ideas?

Help me not have to recreate my Google Map!

potsmokinghippieoverlord — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:55:39 -0800

GoogleMapFilter: can I export my data so I can create a new map? I have created a Google map. It's fine and dandy, but I have another project where almost all the data is duplicated, with additions, and I want to create a new map and have better icons, links, etc.

Is there anyway for me to download the data so I don't have to reinvent my Googlewheel?

software to graph/analyse numeric data in xml file?

compound eye — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:51:58 -0800

software to graph/analyse numeric data in xml file?
I've got lots and lots of numbers and I'd like to look at a pretty graph. Hello,

I have some data in an xml files that I want to plot and analyse.

The data consists of sample points, each sample has a value and a timestamp. The samples are all sorted by time, so I think it should be fairly straight forward to plot the points

I might end having to look at lots of similar files, so it would be good to find a really efficient way of processing the data.

Mostly I'll just need to look at the graph, occasionally I'll want to super impose two graphs on top of each other.

I have used Mathematica, so thats somewhat familiar ground, but I wouldn't have a clue how to import data into it

any suggestions?

cheers

Mat

here's a snippet of the xml:

the first number is the value
the second is the timestamp



<array>


  <real>-0.47238370776176453</real>


  <real>2616.4930366660001</real>


  </array>


  <array>


  <real>-0.45421510934829712</real>


  <real>2616.502291666</real>


  </array>


  <array>


  <real>-0.43604651093482971</real>


  <real>2616.512025</real>


  </array>

My application requests an XML file and I need to plan how to host that file so it's always available and zippy

Your Time Machine Sucks — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 05:17:36 -0800

Please give me some input on web hosting planning for a small XML file which might get a lot of requests. I'm working on an application which allows the user to load an XML file. The XML is less than 2K and will probably be loaded once per usage session, which could happen a few times a day. I can't speculate about how many users there will be, but the outcome that I need to (over)plan for is the one where there are metric fuckloads right out of the gate.

How would you host this file to make sure it is always reachable and zippy? Would you trust one single hosting company to host it? Which one/which plan? Which hosts would you avoid like the plague? Or would you put your eggs in multiple baskets and have a couple of hosts which the app can try in sequence to see if they are reachable? I'm willing to pay for bulletproof uptime and reliability, doesn't have to be a cheapass plan, but it might not be cost-effective to pay for a hosting plan oriented towards customers who need huge amounts of bandwidth or root access rather than the ability to handle lots of simultaneous low-bandwidth requests of one dinky file.

Thanks very much for your input!

Why are there no items in the category feeds of my self-hosted WordPress blog even though my overall feed is fine?

raddevon — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:01:10 -0800

Why are there no items in the category feeds of my self-hosted WordPress blog even though my overall feed is fine? I have a self-hosted blog at raddevon.com. My overall feed updates normally with all my posted items. I am using my categories in my posting, but all my feeds for the three overall categories on my site are empty.

The category feeds:
http://raddevon.com/category/gaming/feed/
http://raddevon.com/category/tech/feed/
http://raddevon.com/category/internet/feed/

I'm running WordPress 2.7. I would really appreciate any insight you might have. Other resources have failed miserably to answer this question. Thanks!

How do I learn about xml (as opposed to learning to write xml code)

gigimakka — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:38:47 -0800

Where/how do I learn enough about xml to communicate with elance contractors producing xml output for my company? I am computer literate and had no trouble learning the basics of hierarchical structure, well-formed code, tags etc. from a couple of online tutorials, but I have no programming experience and I wouldn't actually be writing any code myself. The highly rated xml books I've found on Amazon seem to be written mostly with programmers in mind. My boss (who basically knows what end result he needs) has asked me to make sure a couple of data harvesting projects get done. Our IT guy is in another city, over his head in some big hairy thing, and he doesn't have time to train me or answer questions every day. I don't mind learning on the fly, and in a small business this kind of versatility is actually how I add value. That also means I manage a wide range of projects, most of which have little to do with technology, so I'm not looking to become an expert.

Generally speaking, I need to educate myself so I can make intelligent requests of elance contractors who are doing the actual work. Intelligent requests would include anticipating the need to merge the results of two scrapes and mapping the desired output appropriately ahead of time. It would also be useful to have a sense of how reasonable some requests are that seem simple to me in principle -- like changing an existing xml file to conform to a given schema.

I can give this a few hours a week over the next few weeks. Thanks in advance, and please don't blast me for aspiring to become a dilettante. :-)

Atom Python Library

k7lim — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:29:46 -0800

Is there an Atom or (better yet) AtomPub library for Python? This would save me loads of API XML design time if I can just reuse the Atom infrastructure.

C#: capture data, display to user, save to disk, upload to database: BEST approach

jdlugo — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:45:59 -0800

I have a program that captures live data from a piece of hardware on a set interval. The data is returned as XML. There are several things I would like to do with this data (in order): -display it to user -save it to disk -eventually, upload it to database My current approach is to take the XML, parse it into a hashtable so I can display the correct values to the user.

Next, I want to save the XML to a file on disk. For each data capture session I am planning on creating a unique XML file and I will dump all the data into it.

Finally, I would like to reparse the XML and upload it to a MySQL database. The data cannot be immediately uploaded to the database.

This seems really inefficient method of solving this problem and I would love some advice.

Is it a waste of hd space to save the data as XML?

Is it THAT inefficient to have to reparse the XML in order to write it to a database?

Thank you!

To clarify: a typical XML response will be ~1kb and are captured at a rate of about 1 response every 15-60 seconds.

I think I do want to store the XML as XML on the disk because the data is very valuable and a pain to reproduce (if it is even possible). Thank you!

Not-So-SimpleXML

kirkaracha — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:11:28 -0800

How can I search an XML file with PHP 5? i have an XML file that looks like this:



[redirects]

[story]

[news_id]200810243[/news_id]

[new_url]new_url_one[/new_url]

[/story]

[story]

[news_id]200809024[/news_id]

[new_url]new_url_two[/new_url]

[/story]

[/redirects]

I need to find the new_url for a given news_id. For example, if the news_id is 200809024, I need new_url_two.

I can use SimpleXML to load the file and use PHP 5 to loop through each of the items. There are about 1,300 items, though, so I thought it'd be more efficient to find the new_url that matches the news_id I want. I've looked at tutorials for SimpleXML, XPath, and XQuery, can't find a solution.

(Replaced angled brackets with square ones.)

Display a custom rss feed in the same way that iGoogle does when you add a feed normally?

gregschoen — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:38:48 -0800

I am attempting to create a Google Gadget that displays RSS feeds on the iGoogle page. The problem that I'm having is that the gadget does not display the RSS in the same way as adding an XML to iGoogle does, there is a different display depending on theme and device. So, if you add the Metafilter Gadget, which is just the Metafilter RSS feed, it displays in one way. Switch to another theme and it changes to a different display.

Sorry if this doesn't come out clear, but the question that I'm wondering is whether anyone has experience with this, and whether or not anyone is aware of a way to interact with the API at this level and display an XML RSS feed the same way that Google does. Also, better documented API for the _IG_* namespace would be helpful as well.

History of XML-RPC/WebServices

jwmelvin — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:11:11 -0800

Can anyone provide me with information about the earliest forms of RPC over http? I'm looking for predecessor systems or papers that describe the desire or implementation of moving RPC (or any other remote object access) to the Web, or even to the Internet generally. I don't necessarily need text-based implementations like XML-RPC, but that seems like one area of possible information.

Library of Congress Classifications in XML?

tkolar — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:16:56 -0800

Is there a machine readable version of the Library of Congress Classifications? I'm essentially looking for an XML representation of this data. I'm working with the Project Gutenberg index and I'd like to be able to find my way back from the LCC abbreviation to descriptive text for the category.

Any help would be appreciated.