MergeAsXML

MergeAsXML

This is a simple Ruby based command line tool that takes a delimited data file (like a CSV file) and merges it into a already existing XML file.

  MergeAsXML v1.0.0
      -i, --input filename             File containing input data
      -s separator                     The delimiter of each field in the input file (default: tab \t)
      -X file                          The XML file to merge the data into
      -p parent path                   The path of the parent node to insert at
      -b previous sibling path         The path of the sibling node to insert after
      -c next sibling path             The path of the sibling node to insert before
      -t template                      ERB template to populate (defaults to inbuilt default template)
      -d                               Dump default template to default.xml.erb
      -h                               Display this screen

The basic use case involves you having :

• A delimited datafile, like a CSV file
• An XML file

And you need to get the data from the datafile formatting and inserted into the right place in the XML file.

To do this you specify:

• The datafile to use
• The delimiter for the file. Default is tab.
• An ERB template to control how the data is turned into XML.
• The XML file to insert the output into.
• An xpath expression to indicate where to insert the new XML. Only the first match is used.
• Whether the xpath expression indicates the parent node for the new data (-p), or a sibling node to insert before (-c)or after (-b).

Here's an example of the command-line inserting CSV data as Markers into a Final Cut Pro XML export.

  MergeAsXML -i timecode-data.csv -s , -X FC_XML_EXPORT.XML -b /xmeml/sequence/ismasterclip -t markers.xml.erb

A backup copy of the XML file is made with the suffix .backup.

Installing

It's available as a Ruby Gem.

  sudo gem install MergeAsXML

Making templates

MergeAsXML uses ERB templates. You can read about ERB here.

You can get a copy of the default template using the -d parameter. It saves a copy of the default template in your current directory.

  MergeAsXML -d

The default template looks like this:

  <!-- generated data begins -->
  <% data.each_index do | index | %>
  <marker>
     <name>Marker #<%= index %></name>
     <comment><%= data[index][1] %></comment>
     <color>
        <alpha>0</alpha>
        <red>255</red>
        <green>0</green>
        <blue>0</blue>
     </color>
     <in><%= data[index][0] %></in>
     <out>-1</out>
  </marker>
  <% end %>
  <!-- generated data ends -->

The data from the input file goes into a simple 2D array called data. So each specific item can be accessed as such:

  data[row][col]

And you can step through each item using the .each_index operation.