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Re: Do I need XML parser ?

• To: Saha Rabindra N <saha.rn@m...>
• Subject: Re: Do I need XML parser ?
• From: Razvan MIHAIU <mihaiu@m...>
• Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 19:41:22 +0200
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• User-agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) H3 (4.0)

Saha Rabindra N wrote:

> Hello,
>  As I am new to this XML business so I got a basic and simple question.
> Here it goes...
> I have one cobol data file (in ASCII format) and one cobol record description
file to describe the position/length of each field of data file.
>
> I want to generate one XML file out of that cobol data file. My question is
> 1) Do I need any XML parser to just generate one XML file from a data file ?
Or a simple programming logic can create the XML file ?

            An XML parser does what its name suggests: parse an XML file. Your
input file is not XML so you do not need an XML parser in this scenario.
            XML is just text: you can use programming logic (using the language
of your choice) or even a text editor. A text editor which allows you to
validate against a schema (like DTD, or XML Schema) will help but it is not
required. A text editor that I like is XML Spy - but this one is expensive.

> 2) While environment/programming language would be best in this scenario ?
>         a) program written in cobol on Mainframe ?
>         b) to transfer the datafile to a Unix m/c and the generate the XML
file in C language ?
>         c) to transfer the datafile to a Unix m/c and the generate the XML
file using shell script ?

            Obviously, you can use any of the above scenarios, but the best
thing would be to use the DOM to generate XML.
            The Apache foundation has a good implementation of the DOM
recommendation - namely Xerces. Xerces is written in Java, C++ and Perl:

http://xml.apache.org/xerces2-j/
http://xml.apache.org/xerces-c/
http://xml.apache.org/xerces-p/

            You will have to learn how to use the DOM interface:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/200103/codexercises.htm


Regards,
Razvan


www.mihaiu.name

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