CSV to XML

[Manoj]

Hi,

I want to generate different XML files from one CSV file. For eample I want
build the employee.xml which should contain the distinct list of employees
from the CSV file. The CSV File contains employee name getting repeated
multiple times based on the record type. Please suggest how can I handle this
requirement.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Manoj

[David Patow]

Thanks to the wonders of modern computers, there are at least a dozen
different ways you could do this, but how about this straight-forward
approach ...

1. Write a program that reads the CSV file, line by line, and just writes
the same data to an XML file. No other conversion, no sorting, no filtering.
For example, ...

<employee name="John" department="Accounting" manager="Sam"/>

You should consider using the XML DOM to produce this XML. If you try to
write this text directly from your program, then you have to account for
special characters in the data, such as ampersand (&) and quote ("). The DOM
knows how to do this, and also produces the file in the correct character set
(usually UTF-8).

2. Write a simple program that reads the XML file and processes it through
an XSLT transformation. The XSLT can easily sort and filter the XML, and it
can remove duplicate lines. This program writes your final XML file.

The beauty of this approach is that the first XML file can be used as the
input for many different transformations, perhaps producing not only your
stated "employee.xml" file, but also a "department.xml" and a "manager.xml",
etc., etc.

The MSXML 4 XSLT engine is quite fast, so unless you have a /huge/ number of
employees, this seems like a nice way to go.

[shriop]

The code samples page for my CSV parser has an example of how to go
from CSV to xml. http://www.geocities.com/shriop/csv_samples.html

David Patow wrote:

Thanks to the wonders of modern computers, there are at least a dozen
different ways you could do this, but how about this straight-forward
approach ...

1. Write a program that reads the CSV file, line by line, and just writes
the same data to an XML file. No other conversion, no sorting, no filtering.
For example, ...

<employee name="John" department="Accounting" manager="Sam"/>

You should consider using the XML DOM to produce this XML. If you try to
write this text directly from your program, then you have to account for
special characters in the data, such as ampersand (&) and quote ("). The DOM
knows how to do this, and also produces the file in the correct character set
(usually UTF-8).

2. Write a simple program that reads the XML file and processes it through
an XSLT transformation. The XSLT can easily sort and filter the XML, and it
can remove duplicate lines. This program writes your final XML file.

The beauty of this approach is that the first XML file can be used as the
input for many different transformations, perhaps producing not only your
stated "employee.xml" file, but also a "department.xml" and a "manager.xml",
etc., etc.

The MSXML 4 XSLT engine is quite fast, so unless you have a /huge/ number of
employees, this seems like a nice way to go.

[Bryce K. Nielsen]

> I want to generate different XML files from one CSV file. For eample I
want

build the employee.xml which should contain the distinct list of employees
from the CSV file. The CSV File contains employee name getting repeated
multiple times based on the record type. Please suggest how can I handle this requirement.

Have you looked at xmlLinguist, the Text-to-XML Translator at
http://www.sysonyx.com/products/xmllinguist? It's a simple, affordable tool
that can take a structured text document, such as a CSV or EDI document, and
translate it into XML. It retails for $79.95 and offers a free automation
package that includes a command line driven EXE or a automation COM object
(so if you wanted to include the translations into a bigger package, you
can).

There is currently a tutorial at http://www.sysonyx.com/xml-to-edi-850 that
describes how to translate a PayPal XML document into an EDI 850 Purchase
Order text document. It uses VBScript and the COM object to tie everything
together. Since xmlLinguist is bi-directional, the exact same principles can
be applied to go the other way (i.e. translate your CSV file into XML).

Download the 30 day trial and see if it's a good fit or not.

Bryce K. Nielsen
SysOnyx, Inc. (www.sysonyx.com)
Read the genesis of xmlHack, the Simple XML Editor
http://www.sysonyx.com/xml-editor

[Oleg Tkachenko [MVP]]

Manoj wrote:

I want to generate different XML files from one CSV file. For eample I want
build the employee.xml which should contain the distinct list of employees
from the CSV file. The CSV File contains employee name getting repeated
multiple times based on the record type. Please suggest how can I handle this
requirement.

Get XmlCsvReader and read your CSV as XML.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...lcsvreader.asp

--
Oleg Tkachenko [XML MVP, MCAD]
http://blog.tkachenko.com

[Chris Lovett]

This version of the code has a few bug fixes that the MSDN version doesn't
have yet:
http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/U...B-57A7DBBEBAE0

"Oleg Tkachenko [MVP]" <oleg@NO!SPAM!PLEASEtkachenko.com> wrote in message
news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...

Manoj wrote:

I want to generate different XML files from one CSV file. For eample I
want build the employee.xml which should contain the distinct list of
employees from the CSV file. The CSV File contains employee name getting
repeated multiple times based on the record type. Please suggest how can
I handle this requirement.

Get XmlCsvReader and read your CSV as XML.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...lcsvreader.asp

--
Oleg Tkachenko [XML MVP, MCAD]
http://blog.tkachenko.com