General
Additional XML components
XML properties

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General

Since version 3.9.x CIB merge also supports the processing of data in XML format. There is also a separate documentation for long-term CIB merge users to convert a document project, which was previously based on CSV data supply, step by step into XML based data supply.

Additional XML components

Support of the XML data supply is provided by means of additional DLLs, which must be installed in addition to the CIB merge DLL. These additional components are automatically included in CIB merge transfer packages and are dynamically activated by CIB merge only in case of XML data supply.

XML properties

XML documents have a physical and a logical structure.

The physical structure of an XML document consists of entities. The first entity is the main file of the XML document. Other possible entities are defined using entity references (&name; for the document or %name; for the document type definition) included character strings, possibly even entire files, and References to character entities to include individual characters referenced by their number (&#decimal number; , or &#xhexadecimal number;).

An XML declaration is optionally used to specify XML version, character encoding, and process ability without document type definition.

A document type definition is used optionally to specify entities and the permitted logical structure.

The logical structure of an XML document is a tree structure and thus hierarchically structured. The following tree nodes exist:

Elements whose physical attributes are identified using

a matching pair of start tag

(<Tag-Name>) and end tag (</Tag-Name>) or

an empty element tag

(<Tag-Name />) can be used,

Attributes as keyword-value pairs (attribute name="attribute value") written with a start tag or an empty element tag for additional information about elements (a kind of meta-information)
Processing Instructions ( <?target name parameter ?>)

Comments ( <!-- comment text -->)

Text, which can appear as normal text or in the form of a CDATA section (<![CDATA[ beliebiger Text]]>).

An XML document must contain exactly one top-level element. Further elements can be nested below this document element.

Usage with CIB merge:

The parameter -d<Dataset source> sets the CSV file for CIB merge, see chapter Parameter –d.

XML file

Syntax	Example
<XMLHeader>XMLData1</XMLHeader> <XMLHeader>XMLData2</XMLHeader> <XMLHeader>XMLData3</XMLHeader> <XMLHeader>XMLData4</XMLHeader>	<Data>             <User>Tester</User>             <Telephone>09/987 654</Telephone>             <Street>Test Street 9</Street>             <City>99999 Test City</City> </Data>

Multi XML file

Advantages over CSV:

• Fewer files
• Works internally via nodes
• RTF structures can be simplified with XPATH