How to extract data from an arbitrary xml file and export in a nice csv file?

Question

Hallo,
I'm facing big problems in the use of XML files. I have an
application which generates XML files with clusters containing arrays
and scalars like in the example pasted below. My task is to
read it and export the data in a human-friendly CSV document.
Since I don't know the actual content of the cluster, I need some kind
of intelligent vi which goes through the XML file looking for arrays
and other data structures in order to export them properly in the CSV
format (columns with headers).
Thank you
<Cluster>
<Name></Name>
<NumElts>3</NumElts>
<Array>
<Name></Name>
<Dimsize>6</Dimsize>
<I32>
<Name></Name>
<Val>0</Val>
</I32>
<I32>
<Name></Name>
<Val>1</Val>
</I32>
<I32>
<Name></Name>
<Val>2</Val>
</I32>
<I32>
<Name></Name>
<Val>3</Val>
</I32>
<I32>
<Name></Name>
<Val>4</Val>
</I32>
<I32>
<Name></Name>
<Val>5</Val>
</I32>
</Array>
<DBL>
<Name></Name>
<Val>3.14159265358979</Val>
</DBL>
<String>
<Name></Name>
<Val>ciao</Val>
</String>
</Cluster>
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Answer 1

Thank you again,
I'm forwarding my vi draft with many comments and an xml file sample.
Data in cluster is stored according to the LabVIEW schema, infact it is generated by LabVIEW.
What I'm trying to do is to access the element of the cluster and read their content using the Invoke node and Property node functions. Could you give it a look, there may be something wrong, I'm not able to access cluster children.
Which funcions should I use? Could you give me an example? You may use the draft I enclosed...
Then write these data in a csv file
should be the easier part.
BODY{font:x-small 'Verdana';margin-right:1.5em}
.c{cursor:hand}
.b{color:red;font-family:'Courier New';font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none}
.e{margin-left:1em;text-indent:-1em;margin-right:1em}
.k{margin-left:1em;text-indent:-1em;margin-right:1em}
.t{color:#990000}
.xt{color:#990099}
.ns{color:red}
.dt{color:green}
.m{color:blue}
.tx{font-weight:bold}
.db{text-indent:0px;margin-left:1em;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;padding-left:.3em;border-left:1px solid #CCCCCC;font:small Courier}
.di{font:small Courier}
.d{color:blue}
.pi{color:blue}
.cb{text-indent:0px;margin-left:1em;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;padding-left:.3em;font:small Courier;color:#888888}
.ci{font:small Courier;color:#888888}
PRE{margin:0px;display:inline}
  <?xml
version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
 <Contents type="Data"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="XMLSection.xsd">
 <section name="beta"
date="7/31/2009" time="3:43:03 PM" version="1.0">
 <Cluster>
  <Name />
  <NumElts>1</NumElts>
 <Array>
  <Name />
  <Dimsize>4</Dimsize>
 <DBL>
  <Name>number: 0 to 1</Name>
  <Val>0.93317638164326</Val>
  </DBL>
 <DBL>
  <Name>number: 0 to 1</Name>
  <Val>0.79233924020314</Val>
  </DBL>
 <DBL>
  <Name>number: 0 to 1</Name>
  <Val>0.39199947274518</Val>
  </DBL>
 <DBL>
  <Name>number: 0 to 1</Name>
  <Val>0.74817197429441</Val>
  </DBL>
  </Array>
  </Cluster>
  </section>
  </Contents>
Attachments:
read_array.vi ‏12 KB