XML to CSV with REXML - I'm sure this should be easy

rhubarbcrumble · March 17, 2009, 1:05pm

Ok, I’m taking a fairly simple xml file containing a series of events
and I want to convert it to csv - nothing new there.

However, some events have two or more dates listed and I’d like to
display each as individual lines. My ruby skills are fairly limited but
from googling around I can extract everything up to the dates, but I’m
banging my head against a wall to get any further…

Here’s the XML:

Event Title

Event Category

<name>Venue Name</name>

<address>

  <address1>1 Some Street</address1>

  <town>Some Town</town>

</address>

<performance date='2009-04-01 18:00:00' />

<performance date='2009-04-03 18:00:00' />

This is my extraction code:

require ‘rexml/document’
xml = REXML::Document.new(File.open(“data.xml”))
csv_file = File.new(“data.csv”, “w”)
xml.elements.each("//event") do |e|
csv_file.puts e.attributes[‘id’] << “|” <<
e.elements[‘title’].text << “|” <<
e.elements[‘category’].text << “|” <<
e.elements[‘venue/name’].text << “|” <<
e.elements[‘venue/address/address1’].text << “|” <<
e.elements[‘venue/address/town’].text
end

I’m sure this should be fairly simple but any help would be appreciated.
Cheers!

rhubarbcrumble · March 17, 2009, 4:10pm

On 17.03.2009 13:03, Sandy T. wrote:

<performance date='2009-04-01 18:00:00' />
xml = REXML::Document.new(File.open(“data.xml”))
csv_file = File.new(“data.csv”, “w”)
xml.elements.each("//event") do |e|
csv_file.puts e.attributes[‘id’] << “|” <<
e.elements[‘title’].text << “|” <<
e.elements[‘category’].text << “|” <<
e.elements[‘venue/name’].text << “|” <<
e.elements[‘venue/address/address1’].text << “|” <<
e.elements[‘venue/address/town’].text

Here you need to iterate through all the “performance” elements below
the current event and concatenate the individual performance’s date
with what you have built so far.

You should probably also take measures to emit a line without a date in
case zero performances can be found in input XML.

I’m sure this should be fairly simple but any help would be appreciated.
Cheers!

Kind regards

robert

rhubarbcrumble · March 17, 2009, 4:16pm

Sandy T. [email protected] wrote:

<performance date='2009-04-01 18:00:00' />
xml = REXML::Document.new(File.open(“data.xml”))
Which gives me:
1234|Event Title|Event Category|Venue Name|1 Some Street|Some Town

But what I really want is:
1234|Event Title|Event Category|Venue Name|1 Some Street|Some
Town|2009-04-01 18:00:00
1234|Event Title|Event Category|Venue Name|1 Some Street|Some
Town|2009-04-03 18:00:00

What you are really interested in is each performance (each performance
generates one line of output). So simply deepen your loop:

xml.elements.each(“//event”) do |e|
e.elements.each(“//performance”) do |p|

Now do exactly what you’re doing and just append the performance date.
So, for example:

require ‘rexml/document’
include REXML
output = “”
class REXML::Element
def textof(xpaths_arr); xpaths_arr.map {|x| elements[x].text}; end
end
xml = Document.new(s)
xp = %w{title category venue/name
venue/address/address1 venue/address/town}
xml.elements.each(“//event”) do |e|
e.elements.each(“//performance”) do |p|
output <<
[e.attributes[‘id’],
e.textof(xp),
p.attributes[‘date’]].flatten.join(“|”) + “\n”
end
end

m.

rhubarbcrumble · March 17, 2009, 4:50pm

Robert K. wrote:

Here you need to iterate through all the “performance” elements below
the current event and concatenate the individual performance’s date
with what you have built so far.

You should probably also take measures to emit a line without a date in
case zero performances can be found in input XML.

Kind regards

robert

Thank you Robert, I’m getting closer…

So, I’m still missing something - any ideas?

xml.elements.each("//performances/performance") do |f|
csv_file.puts detail << “|” << f.attributes[‘date’]
end
end

rhubarbcrumble · March 17, 2009, 4:55pm

xml.elements.each("//performances/performance") do |f|

That should read e.elements.each… but the result is the same

cheers for the reply matt, just looking at that now

rhubarbcrumble · March 17, 2009, 5:27pm

What you are really interested in is each performance (each performance
generates one line of output). So simply deepen your loop:

xml.elements.each("//event") do |e|
e.elements.each("//performance") do |p|

Now do exactly what you’re doing and just append the performance date.
So, for example:

require ‘rexml/document’
include REXML
output = “”
class REXML::Element
def textof(xpaths_arr); xpaths_arr.map {|x| elements[x].text}; end
end
xml = Document.new(s)
xp = %w{title category venue/name
venue/address/address1 venue/address/town}
xml.elements.each("//event") do |e|
e.elements.each("//performance") do |p|
output <<
[e.attributes[‘id’],
e.textof(xp),
p.attributes[‘date’]].flatten.join("|") + “\n”
end
end

m.

Ok, so this is plainly much neater, thanks Matt

…but, whilst it works for one event with multiple dates, as soon as I
add a second event it iterates through all of the dates against every
event, so for 2 events each with 2 dates it outputs 8 lines…

Here’s the code as it now stands:

require ‘rexml/document’
include REXML
output = “”
class REXML::Element
def textof(xpaths_arr); xpaths_arr.map {|x| elements[x].text}; end
end
xml = REXML::Document.new(File.open(“data.xml”))
csv_file = File.new(“data.csv”, “w”)
xp = %w{title category venue/name venue/address/address1
venue/address/town}

xml.elements.each("//event") do |e|
e.elements.each("//performance") do |p|

csv_file.puts output + [e.attributes[‘id’], e.textof(xp),
p.attributes[‘date’]].flatten.join("|") + “\n”

end
end

rhubarbcrumble · March 17, 2009, 7:54pm

Sandy T. [email protected] wrote:

…but, whilst it works for one event with multiple dates, as soon as I
add a second event it iterates through all of the dates against every
event, so for 2 events each with 2 dates it outputs 8 lines…

Cool!

xml.elements.each(“//event”) do |e|
e.elements.each(“//performance”) do |p|

Yeah, sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking about the XPath here.
Obviously “//performance” is wrong. I shoulda said
“descendant::performance” or “performances/performance” or similar.

Of course one could also argue that Ruby and REXML are more heavyweight
than you need; you’re just dumpster-diving in simple XML and outputting
text, so you could write this whole thing as an XSLT template. Choices,
choices…!

m.

rhubarbcrumble · March 17, 2009, 8:02pm

matt neuburg wrote:

Sandy T. [email protected] wrote:

…but, whilst it works for one event with multiple dates, as soon as I
add a second event it iterates through all of the dates against every
event, so for 2 events each with 2 dates it outputs 8 lines…

Cool!

xml.elements.each(“//event”) do |e|
e.elements.each(“//performance”) do |p|

Yeah, sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking about the XPath here.
Obviously “//performance” is wrong. I shoulda said
“descendant::performance” or “performances/performance” or similar.

Of course one could also argue that Ruby and REXML are more heavyweight
than you need; you’re just dumpster-diving in simple XML and outputting
text, so you could write this whole thing as an XSLT template. Choices,
choices…!

m.

Choices indeed, but it works perfectly now so I’ll go with it

Thanks!