Re: Importing multiple XML files into one XML file

<!-- employees.xml -->
<!DOCTYPE EMPLOYEES
[
<!ENTITY emp-stuff SYSTEM "employee.xml">
]>
<EMPLOYEES>
<OFFICE name="Town Hall">
 &emp-stuff;
</OFFICE>
</EMPLOYEES>

<!-- employee.xml -->
<!DOCTYPE EMPLOYEES
[
<!ENTITY dob-stuff SYSTEM "dob.xml">
]>
<EMPLOYEE>
  <NAME>Jo Blogs</NAME>
  &dob-stuff;
</EMPLOYEE>

<!-- dob.xml -->
  <DOB>1-12-1980</DOB>

From: "G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re:  Importing multiple XML files into one XML file
Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2004 13:31:36 -0400

At 2004-04-06 16:55 +0000, Chisanga Mwelwa wrote:

I want to use XML as a template for an application data source. Now the problem I have come across is the increasing size of the XML files and I was wondering whether there is an elegant way in which I can organise my files.

Use the physical entity structure available for XML documents and external parsed general entities.

For instance if I have a an XML file such as "employees.xml":

<?--employees.xml-->
<EMPLOYEES>

<OFFICE name="Town Hall">

 <EMPLOYEE>
  <NAME>Jo Blogs</NAME>
  <DOB>1-12-1980</DOB>
 </EMPLOYEE>

</OFFICE>

</EMPLOYEES>

Now say I would like to create another file "employee.xml" and use it to store the data currently in the <EMPLOYEE> tag instead of craming everything into the "employees.xml" file

That would be the external parsed general entity.

and then (I dont know how...) call this file from the main file: "employees.xml" file.

That would be the general entity reference.

Is there a way I could achieve this?

An example is below; I hope this helps.

.................... Ken

p.s. I use this extensively in my prose writing of my books and training material because it allows me to maintain modules, lessons and frames in separate XML fragments, referenced through a tree of entity references, as separate objects in my source code control system ... I don't have to check out an entire module just to change a single paragraph.

p.p.s. do not be lured into using external parsed general entities for information sharing ... only for the fragmentation of a single large instance into portions ... use the document() function in XSLT for information sharing as the general entity approach is far too fragile to use in a production environment

T:\ftemp>type employees.xml
<!DOCTYPE EMPLOYEES
[
<!ENTITY emp-stuff SYSTEM "employee.xml">
]>
<EMPLOYEES>

<OFFICE name="Town Hall">

&emp-stuff;

</OFFICE>

</EMPLOYEES>

T:\ftemp>type employee.xml
 <EMPLOYEE>
  <NAME>Jo Blogs</NAME>
  <DOB>1-12-1980</DOB>
 </EMPLOYEE>

T:\ftemp>type chisanga.xsl
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
                version="1.0">

<xsl:template match="@*|node()"><!--identity for all other nodes-->
  <xsl:copy>
    <xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()"/>
  </xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>
T:\ftemp>saxon employees.xml chisanga.xsl
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><EMPLOYEES>

<OFFICE name="Town Hall">

  <EMPLOYEE>
  <NAME>Jo Blogs</NAME>
  <DOB>1-12-1980</DOB>
 </EMPLOYEE>

</OFFICE>

</EMPLOYEES>
T:\ftemp>

--
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