[Alex147]

Hi,
I have an XML file such as the one below ;

[code]

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

- <Cars>
- <Car ID="1821" Model="318" ES="18" Doors="3" Colour="207.0">
<Options Audio="01" Tyres="a5" Aircon="0" Leather="1" Auto="1" SR="0" />
<Safety Sa="1" Sb="1" Sc="0"/>
</Car>
- <Car ID="1675" Model="840i" ES="40" Doors="3" Colour="195.0">
<Options Audio="07" Tyres="r6" Aircon="1" Leather="1" Auto="0" SR="0" />
<Safety Sa="1" Sb="1" Sc="1"/>
</Car>
- <Car ID="1149" Model="760" ES="60" Doors="5" Colour="255.0">
<Options Audio="01" Tyres="c3" Aircon="1" Leather="1" Auto="1" SR="1" />
<Safety Sa="1" Sb="1" Sc="1"/>
</Car>
</Cars>

[CODE/]

I need to parse this file so that i can obtain an output similar to this below;

ID1=1821&ID2=1675&ID3=1149&Model1=318&Model2=840i etc.

The order of this file is not important, basically, all i need to do is place an increasing suffix on the end of each attribute and produce a simplified, organised version of the xml document.

I have managed to do this in VB, however, it is extremely slow. I am trying to do this in perl but have no idea how.
Any help whatsoever will be much appreciated.

[Shadow2531]

You can easily do this with javascript and could rely on it if each each xml file has the same tag names and you just want to get the string so you can paste it somewhere.

attached is example.txt

Put that code as the last element inside Cars.

View the page in a browser (preferably Opera) and it will alert the string you want. With Opera at least, you can select and copy the alert box text.

I will look into a perl/c++ method.

[Mithrilhall]

Have you tried creating a Visual Basic Scripting(.vbs) file instead of using Visual Basic? It's fairly fast from what I remember. I've created a few to download some RSS/RDF feeds and parse them.

[Alex147]

Excelllent,
Java is perfect, i'm doing the rest of my stuff with it, was just wondering about perl as it was recommended to me.
Few questions though, do you mean put that code at the end of the xml source, if so, is there an alternative so that the xml document does not have to be altered in any way?

[Shadow2531]

You put it inside the <cars> element as the last element. It has to be in the file so the file would have to be modified using this method. However, if the xml files are being served with apache for example, you could use proxomitron to dynamically add the script when you view each xml file. You could also make a simple program to make copies of all the xml files that have the script in it.

I'll look more into it. Just trying to avoid writing a parsing program when Opera already does it for you.

You have a PM.

[CraigCKlein]

Hi,

When you said this was slow using vb, were you using the Microsoft XML component as a reference?

All you have to do is use the DOMDocument object to read this file and use a couple of for ... next statements.

code tidbit
Dim xmldoc As DOMDocument
Set xmldoc = New DOMDocument
xmldoc.loadXML strXMLFileContents
Dim topChild As Object
For Each topChild In xmldoc.documentElement.childNodes
Dim nextChild As Object
For Each nextChild In topChild.childNodes
etc etc.

I don't know if you are interested in pursuing this avenue, but it definitely wouldn't be slow.

Craig