From: Jari Williamsson <jari.williamsson@...>
Date: 2007-11-24T00:24:53+09:00
Subject: Re: XML to Ruby?

Thanks, Bob! You understood despite my bad sample code.

By reading the description of your Xampl tool, this seems to be the tool 
I need! In my case, analyzing a bunch of XML files like your tool do 
would work as good as working on the DTD.

Best regards,

Jari Williamsson


Bob Hutchison wrote:

> On 22-Nov-07, at 10:34 PM, Phrogz wrote:
> 
>> On Nov 22, 7:06 am, Jari Williamsson
>> <jari.williams...@mailbox.swipnet.se> wrote:
>>> Rolando Abarca wrote:
>>> It seems like I need to specify a bit better what I need: I'm looking
>>> for a utility that will _generate_ Ruby code (classes) from a
>>> hierarchical XML file.
>>>
>>> Let's say this is the XML data:
>>> mymodule.xml
>>> ======
>>> <root>
>>>    <sub id="1">Some data</sub>
>>>    <sub id="2>Some more data</sub>
>>> </root>
>>>
>>> The utility would then generate 2 .rb module files, such as:
>>>
>>> root.rb:
>>> ======
>>> require 'mymodule/sub'
>>> module MyModule
>>> class Root < SomeBaseClass
>>>     attr_accessor :sub_elements   # Array
>>>     # Some more stuff
>>> end
>>>
>>> sub.rb:
>>> ======
>>> module MyModule
>>> class Sub < SomeBaseClass
>>>    attr_accessor :id
>>>    # Some more stuff
>>> end
>>> end
>>>
>>> The more I think about it, this kind of utility probably is required to
>>> analyze the DTD rather than the XML to get the proper relationships. Any
>>> such utility available?
>>
>> I really have no idea how your XML file above maps to the output you
>> describe. It appears that you just look at the unique element names
>> and create classes from them. You ignore the hierarchy of the XML
>> file, you ignore all the attributes of the elements, and you ignore
>> all the text content of the elements?
> 
> I think Jari might be confusing things with the test case he provided. 
> It seems to me that he has shown the nesting of elements/classes (e.g. 
> sub_elements -- the 'sub' is an element name) and attributes (e.g. the 
> 'id' accessor -- the 'id' is an attribute name). He's missed the text 
> (and all that that implies), but he's looking for the tool not promoting 
> one so that's okay.
> 
> FWIW, my thing, xampl, generates 2 classes, 2 modules, and 59 methods 
> for Jari's example. Xampl defines a bunch of stuff to help you work with 
> the generated code. Xampl doesn't use DTDs or schemas to do this.
> 
> Cheers,
> Bob
> 
>>
>>
>> So, you just need something like this:
>>
>> raw_xml = IO.read( 'myfile.xml' )
>> all_tag_names = raw_xml.scan( /<(\w+)/ ).flatten.uniq
>> all_tag_names.each{ |tag_name|
>>  # use ERB here to create new files using
>>  # tag_name.capitalize as the foundation for the class name
>> }
>>
> 
> ----
> Bob Hutchison                  -- tumblelog at http://www.recursive.ca/so/
> Recursive Design Inc.          -- weblog at http://www.recursive.ca/hutch
> http://www.recursive.ca/       -- works on 
> http://www.raconteur.info/cms-for-static-content/home/
> 
> 
> 
>