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Somebody asked me about how they could convert an XML file to a CSV file to upload into MySQL. They were asking the question based on an old Convert XML to CSV blog post from 2008. Amazing though that is, I had to explain the process no longer requires manual tasks, like calling Java files from the Apache XML Project. All they needed to do was use the Oxygen XML Editor, which is why I wrote this blog post.

For example, I had them use the same sample XML file from the old blog post (shown below) with one change. The encoding value needs to change from latin1 (ISO-8859-1) to unicode (UTF-8). Then, they should put it into a local Windows directory (mine went into the C:\Data directory).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<character>
  <name>
    <role>Indiana Jones</role>
    <actor>Harrison Ford</actor>
    <part>protagonist</part>
    <film>Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark</film>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom</film>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</film>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</film>
  </name>
  <name>
    <role>Wilhelmina Scott</role>
    <actor>Kate Capshaw</actor>
    <part>support</part>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom</film>
  </name>
  <name>
    <role>Marion Ravenwood</role>
    <actor>Karen Allen</actor>
    <part>support</part>
    <film>Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark</film>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</film>
  </name>
  <name>
    <role>Elsa Schneider</role>
    <actor>Alison Doody</actor>
    <part>support</part>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</film>
  </name>
  <name>
    <role>Short Round</role>
    <actor>Jonathan Ke Quan</actor>
    <part>support</part>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom</film>
  </name>
  <name>
    <role>Sallah</role>
    <actor>Jonn Rhys-Davies</actor>
    <part>support</part>
    <film>Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark</film>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</film>
  </name>
  <name>
    <role>Professor Henry Jones</role>
    <actor>Sean Connery</actor>
    <part>support</part>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</film>
  </name>
  <name>
    <role>Henry "Mutt" Williams</role>
    <actor>Shia LaBeouf</actor>
    <part>support</part>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</film>
  </name>
  <name>
    <role>Marcus Brody</role>
    <actor>Denholm Elliott</actor>
    <part>support</part>
    <film>Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark</film>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</film>
  </name>
  <name>
    <role>Amrish Puri</role>
    <actor>Mola Ram</actor>
    <part>antagonist</part>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom</film>
  </name>
  <name>
    <role>Rene Belloq</role>
    <actor>Belloq</actor>
    <part>antagonist</part>
    <film>Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark</film>
  </name>
  <name>
    <role>Walter Donovan</role>
    <actor>Julian Glover</actor>
    <part>antagonist</part>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</film>
  </name>
  <name>
    <role>Colonel Vogel</role>
    <actor>Michael Bryne</actor>
    <part>antagonist</part>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</film>
  </name>
  <name>
    <role>Irina Spalko</role>
    <actor>Cate Blanchett</actor>
    <part>antagonist</part>
    <film>Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</film>
  </name>
</character>

Then, I had them copy the following XML Style Language Transformation (XSLT) file into the same C:\Data directory with the encoding value change from latin1 to unicode:

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:template match="/">
  <!-- This loops through the branch when a sibling meets a condition. -->
  <xsl:for-each select="character/name[film='Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade']">
  <!-- Sorts based on the value in the "role" element. -->
  <xsl:sort select="role" />
  <!-- Eliminates anyone that has a "part" element value of "antagonist". -->
    <xsl:if test="part != 'antagonist'">
      <!-- An apostrophe before and after with a line return. -->
      <xsl:text>&#39;</xsl:text>
      <xsl:value-of select="role"/>
      <!-- An apostrophe followed by a comma -->
      <xsl:text>&#39;&#44;</xsl:text>
      <xsl:text>&#39;</xsl:text>
      <xsl:value-of select="actor"/>
      <xsl:text>&#39;&#44;</xsl:text>
      <xsl:text>&#39;</xsl:text>
      <xsl:value-of select="film"/>
      <!-- An apostrophe followed by a line return -->
      <xsl:text>&#39;&#10;</xsl:text>
    </xsl:if>
  </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Open or launch the Oxygen XML Editor and do these steps:

  • Create a new Project called character.
  • Create the C:\Data\test.xml and C:\Data\convert.xsl files in a C:\Data directory.
  • Open the C:\Data\test.xml and C:\Data\convert.xsl files inside the Oxygen XML Editor.
  • Click on convert.xsl file tab before clicking on the Configure Transformation Scenario(s) button. The button looks like a red wrench with a small red arrow to the bottom right.
  • After launching the Configure Transformation Scenario(s) dialog, click the Edit button in the dialog box and launch the Edit Scenario dialog.
  • Enter file:/C:/Data/test.xml (use the file chooser if don’t want to type it) in the XML URL field in the Edit Scenario dialog.
  • Click the OK button to close the Edit Scenario dialog and the Apply associated button to close the Configure Transformation Scenario(s) dialog.
  • Click the Apply Transformation Scenario button, which is red arrow button. It will transform the XML document into a result pane at the bottom.
  • Select All (or Ctrl+A) in the result panel and right click on that selected area to launch a context sensitive menu. In that menu, click the Save button to launch a file chooser that will let you save your results.

If you know how to write XSLT this is simple and if you don’t it might take a little time to find a working example on the Internet. Better yet, check out the w3schools for the XSLT documentation or tutorials point’s Learn XSLT website. You can see how to Upload the CSV file into MySQL on this older blog post.

In Linux, you can make this conversion using the Command-Line Interface (CLI) by using the xsltproc program. Assume the XML file is test.xml and the XSLT file is tocsv.xsl, then you can generate the Comma-Separated Values file with this syntax:

xsltproc tocsv.xsl test.xml > text.csv

As always, I hope this helps those looking for a simple solution.

Written by maclochlainn

March 11th, 2021 at 1:15 pm

Posted in Apache,MySQL,MySQL 8,Oxygen XML Editor,xml,xslt

Tagged with , ,

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