Re: [xsl] Variations in XML to CSV

[Michael Kay <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It's hard to know from this description why you are struggling. There 
are zillions of examples of XSLT stylesheets to convert XML to CSV out 
there in google-land, and many of them work. I'd suggest you write some 
code that you find promising, and if it doesn't work then we'll tell you 
why. It's only when we see non-working code that we can work out where 
you went wrong in your thinking.

Of course, we also need to know what CSV output you want to produce. 
There are many different ways, for example, of handling the repeating 
element "subject".

Michael Kay
Saxonica



On 21/04/2011 15:30, Bridger Dyson-Smith wrote:
> Hi all,
> thanks for taking a moment to read.
>
> I'm trying to generate a CSV file from XML that looks something like this:
>
> <root>
>   <metadata>
>     <title>Alpha</title>
>     <subject>Sinister</subject>
>     <creator>Beta</creator>
>     <subject>Gamma</subject>
>     <subject>Delta</subject>
>     <subject>Epsilon</subject>
>     <date>2011-04-19</date>
>   </metadata>
>   <metadata>
>     <title>Zeta</title>
>     <creator>Eta</creator>
>     <creator>Theta</creator>
>     <contributor>Dexter</contributor>
>     <contributor>Iota</contributor>
>     <subject>Kappa</subject>
>     <subject>Lambda</subject>
>     <date>2011-04-19</date>
>   </metadata>
> </root>
>
> I'm at a complete loss. I've been reading (and rereading) examples
> from the XSLT Cookbook, but I haven't been able to make the examples
> jive with what I'm looking at on my screen. Is this even possible? If
> so, would someone mind giving me a push in the right direction?
>
> I've been able to generate a dummy XML file that has a complete set of
> all the elements:
> <root>
>   <metadata>
>     <title>Value</title>
>     <subject>Value</subject>
>     <creator>Value</creator>
>     <creator>Value</creator>
>     <contributor>Value</contributor>
>     <subject>Value</subject>
>     <subject>Value</subject>
>     <subject>Value</subject>
>     <date>Value</date>
>   </metadata>
> </root>
> If I use this to generate a row of column names, I think I can map the
> variable elements to their respective columns provided I can get that
> aforementioned push. Maybe it needs to be a kick...
>
> Thanks again for reading.
> Cheers,
> Bridger