Processing XSLT on multiple files

Daedalus · August 28th, 2012, 08:12 AM

Hi,

I want to run an XSLT script to pull some text from within a certain element(s) of multiple XML files. I'm sure i can work out the code to select the element i need and grab the text from within, but how do i run the XSLT on multiple XML source files?

Is this possible without extensive coding knowledge? I'm a c# beginner as well as XSLT but what i thought would be a fairly easy task is proving out of my depth.

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

mhkay · August 28th, 2012, 09:59 AM

You can load a source document using the document() function if you know its URI. You don't say how the multiple source documents will be identified, so it's hard to give you any more specific advice.

Daedalus · August 28th, 2012, 10:08 AM

Thank for your response Michael. Your expertise is appreciated.

This is really a general query as I work with hundreds of XML files at the same time, and to be able to run a query on a batch would be incredibly useful.

For example, I have a bunch of XML files containing aircraft maintenance procedures - this is my line of work. What i would like to do is to be able to extract all the necessary support equipment and consumables from all these files to compile a list (or single XML file) of what is required to complete all the procedures.

So within the individual procedures, the support equipment is contained in <supequip> elements, and consumables are contained within <supply> elements.

I would like to be able to point to a folder containing all my XML files, and run the XSLT so that the output is a complete list of equipment and consumables.

Hope this makes things a bit clearer, and thank you again.

Martin Honnen · August 28th, 2012, 10:15 AM

Assuming you use Saxon 9 for your XSLT (2.0) processing you can use the collection function, see http://www.saxonica.com/documentatio...ollections.xml. So

Code:

<xsl:apply-templates select="collection('file:///C:/dir/subir?select=*.xml')//supequip"/>

processes the supequip elements in all .xml files in that directory C:/dir/subir.

Daedalus · August 28th, 2012, 10:21 AM

Thank you Martin, I will try that later ... it looks like it could be exactly what I'm looking for.

Assuming I can work it out, it will be extremely useful for various queries.

Thanks again.

Daedalus · August 28th, 2012, 10:45 AM

Hi Martin, it has just occurred to me that your solution actually calls the collection of files from the XSLT itself. I wasn't expecting to see that.

My assumption was that I would point to the directory of files when executing Saxon from the command line.

Using your method, what would I point to as the source file when executing?

samjudson · August 28th, 2012, 10:59 AM

With Saxon (and other XSLT 2.0 processors I believe) you can pass an initial template name in, rather than passing a source document.

saxon -it "main"

will run the following template:

<xsl:template name="main"> ...