Additional XML components

XML data supplies are supported via additional DLLs that have to be installed along with the CIB jsMerge DLL. These additional DLL files are included in the CIB jsMerge packages and are only called dynamically by CIB jsMerge if a XML datasource is used.

XML-Characteristics

XML-documents have a physical structure and a logical composition.

The physical structure of a XML document is made up of:

Entities. The first entity is the main file of the XML file. Additional possible entities are:

Strings, embedded via entity references (&name; for a document or %name; for the document type definition),

References to strings to embed single characters that are referenced via there number (&#decimalnumber; or &#xHexadecimalnumber;).

A XML declaration is optional to specify the XML version, character encoding and processing without document type definition.

A document type definition is used to specify entities and their allowed logical structure.

The logical structure of a XML document is a tree structure and thus hierarchical. The nodes can be following elements:

• Elements that can be marked with a matching pair made up of a start tag (<Tag-name>) and an end tag (</Tag-name>) or and empty element tag (<Tag-name/>)
• Attributes as key-value pairs (attribute-name="attribute-value"), providing additional information about elements (a kind of meta informaton)
• Processing instructions (<?Target-name parameter?>)
• Comments (<!--comment text-->)
• Text, either as normal text or as a CDATA section (<![CDATA[any text]]>)

A XML document has to have exactly one element on the top level. Below this document element more elements can be nested.

Usage with CIB jsMerge:

The Property datafile <data source> sets the XML-file for CIB jsMerge.

XML file

Syntax	Example
<XMLhead>XMLData1</XMLhead>             <XMLhead>XMLData2</XMLhead>             <XMLhead>XMLData3</XMLhead>             <XMLhead>XMLDaten4</XMLhead>	<data>             <user>Tester</user>             <phone>09/987 654</phone>             <street>Test Road 9</street>             <city>99999 Testcity</city> </data>

 

Multi-XML file

Advantages over using CSV:

• Less files
• Works with nodes internally
• With XPATH in XML, structures in the document can be simplified.

Many of these properties are optional, some are mandatory.