From: Bob Hutchison <hutch@...>
Date: 2007-11-24T00:38:36+09:00
Subject: Re: XML to Ruby?

Hi

On 23-Nov-07, at 10:24 AM, Jari Williamsson wrote:

> 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.

Great! If you need any help, let me know and I'll do what I can. An  
understatement would be "the documentation is sparse".

Cheers,
Bob

>
>
> 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/
>

----
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/