Extract from xml tool
See:
http://taporware.mcmaster.ca/~taporware/xmlTools/xmlquery.shtml
Description
The
Extract from xml tool allows you to specify an element or attribute/value combination and extract all the elements that match. Thus one can extract the paragraph elements from an XML file. You can use an XPath in the "Element" field for more complicated extraction.
History
Pseudocode
- Obtain XML string by URL or from user's local disk
- Extract text based on user specified element(s)
- Generate output based on user specified display format
Ways of Using
- Enter a valid URL in the URL field or enter a local upload html text (Note: this text must be xml)
- Enter valid xml element names of the input xml source seperated by comma, default is "//"
- If you want to specify attribute, enter them in the corresponding fields in pairs
- Select output format
- Click "submit" button
XPath
To retrieve using XPath you enter the XPath into the "Element" field. For example, //Xitem[Xdate[@xyear='2007']] will retrieve all parent elements "Xitem" whose "Xdate" child has the "xyear" attribute with a value of "2007". This would return the whole "Xitem" that might include an "Xtext" element that is a sibling to "Xdate" and has the text you want.
CGI Interface
If you want to use this tool from your web site, here is the CGI Interface:
(
Note: you need to use attribute name/value pair: enctype="multipart/form-data" within the form tag because the script is written with file uploading in mind)
Here are the parameters:
| Parameter Name | Parameter Value | Control Type | Default | Discription |
|---|
| source | url/local | radio button | url | Let user select input text (either a url or upload local xml text) |
|---|
| xmlurl | | text | | A valid URL that the pointed document should be an xml text |
|---|
| localFile | | file | | The path to your local xml text file |
|---|
| xmlpath | | text | // | Valid xml element names (paths) or multple xml element names (paths) separated by comma |
|---|
| attr_name | | text | | Valid xml attribute name of the input xml docs |
|---|
| attr_value | | text | | Valid xml attribute value corresponding to the attribute name |
|---|
| HowToDisplay | 1/2/3 | selection | 1 | Display format which are HTML/XML text in HTML/XML tree in the order of parameter values |
|---|
| taporface | | checkbox | checked | display result in a new window without graphics interface (default) or with taporware interface in the same window |
|---|
Web Service Interface
Taporware provides web services to any non-benefit organizations. Here is the taporware web services infomation:
- Endpoint URL: http://taporware.mcmaster.ca:9982
- Service URI: http://taporware.mcmaster.ca/~taporware/webservice
- Service Method: extract_Text_XML
- parameters:
- xmlInput -- any xml string
- element -- any valid xml element name in the input xml text
- attributeName -- any valid attribute name in the input xml text
- attributeValue -- the attribute value corresponding to the attribute name above
- outFormat -- values are same as parameter "textdisp" in the CGI interface above
Known Bugs
To Do
- We need to add an X-Path field to the Subtext limited to panel so one can specify more complicated subtexts.
--
GeoffreyRockwell - 17 May 2005
