RE: Re: "FLAT" XML to Hierarchical XML

O.K., once you have the file, how will you discover if a customer is already in the database?
--
Charles Knell
cknell@xxxxxxxxxx - email

-----Original Message-----
From:     Brandon Schenz <brandons@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent:     Fri, 24 Sep 2004 13:48:18 -0400
To:       xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject:  Re:  "FLAT" XML to Hierarchical XML

*Brandon Schenz*
Midwest Sports Supply
Phone: 513-956-4900
Fax: 513-956-4910
E-mail: brandons@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

XSL is good, but it isn't magic.
You can use it to create a unique id string for an element, but you have to tell it the basis for identifying elements. For example, in your sample document you have a Ship_To_First_Name element and a Ship_To_Last_Name element.
Suppose you have two customers named "John Smith". You couldn't use a combination of first name and last name to uniquely identify individual customers. "Well," you might say, "then I'll combine first name, last name, Ship_To_Address_1, Ship_To_Address_2, Ship_To_City, Ship_To_State, and Ship_To_Zip to use as the basis for a unique identifier."
That will work to differentiate the two John Smiths, but suppose one of the John Smiths enters a subsequent order and calls himself "John L. Smith", or "J. Smith". How will you be able to tell XSL that these are the same person?

You'll have to go back to your database adminstrator and ask if there is a column in the customer table with a name like "customer_id" that uniquely identifies a customer.