On 10/04/2012 08:11 AM, Andreas Säger wrote: > Mark Stanton wrote >> I hope not, XML is supposed to be a self defining file format surely? > It's a meta-file format. You (who defines all the XML tags) are the one and > only person able to develop import and export software for your particular > flavour of XML. > > <xml> > <BLAH foo="bar"> > <blub x=12>1.43</blub> > <scramble crucifix=True>ertzuiopdfghjklöxcvbnm</scramble> > </BLAH> > </xml> > How would you translate this into a spreadsheet? Is BLAH a row, a column? > What is scramble? How to deal with the attributes? > > Nobody ever tells us anything about his/her user-defined file formats such > as CSV or XML. So most of the topics becaome lengthy and some remain > unsolved. > >> A general importer ought to be easy, no? > Google reveals plenty of examples about how to write XLST scritpts to > import/export user-defined XML formats into/from ODF. This is development > work just like writing macros or setting up a database. > In all those years since OOo 1.0 nobody wrote a generic XML-to-Calc tool. I > would search in the database world for existing XML tools for database > engines. Once you have the data in a connectable database, you have it it in > Calc and Writer as well. > > > > -- > View this message in context: > http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Import-XML-files-tp4010875p4010988.html > Sent from the Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > Andreas,
My understanding the problem with importing a generic XML file is that the document definition does not a (defacto) "standard" that one can write an import script for? If the XML file uses a known definition (ODF for example) then it is easier to write an import script because there is a "standard" defining the document internals. The extension of this is, if the file format is well documented, even if it is proprietary, then writing an import script is possible because there exists a specification for the format. The only issue then is whether one has the complete format specification. -- Jay Lozier jsloz...@gmail.com -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: users+h...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
