Assuming it's a text file like what you've shown (I put mine on my desktop) then:

Applescript:

set P to paragraphs 3 thru 6 of (read alias "ACB-G5_Leopard:Users:bell:Desktop:xmlFile")
set tid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set tData to {}
--> {"Audio", "Some Name Here", "Some Display Name Here", "http://somesite.com"}
repeat with oneP in P
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ">"
   set aPart to text item 2 of oneP
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "<"
   set end of tData to text item 1 of aPart
end repeat
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tid

Check out the dictionary for system events in the XML section. There is some basic XML support built right in to system events.

Applescript:

tell application "System Events"
       tell XML element 1 of contents of XML file XMLfile --THis targets the main outer tag, <8086:293e> in your case
               set typeText to (value of (XML elements whose name is "type")) as string
               set nameText to (value of (XML elements whose name is "name")) as string
       end tell
end tell

I didn't check this so I hope there aren't errors in the syntax. That should give you a good start at least.

If you want to get more complicated (like writing out an updated XML file after you chenge the data), you might want to get the XML and XSLT scripting additions here http://www.latenightsw.com/freeware/.

To me xml or html or whatever is just a big long string. As such I don't need special xml commands to extract information from a string. I just use repeat loops (looking for characters I'm interested in) to get the information I want. The following will get all of the values and place them in a list for you.

Applescript:

set tt to "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-16\"?>
<8086:293e>
<type>Audio</type>
<name>Some Name Here</name>
<displayname>Some Display Name Here</displayname>
<download>http://somesite.com</download>
</8086:293e>"

-- put the xml into a list
set ttParas to paragraphs of tt

-- we cycle through the list and extract the portion between the tag we're interested in
-- we know that the tags we want are between "<8086:" and "</8086:"
set tagValueList to {}
repeat with i from 1 to count of ttParas
   if text 1 thru 6 of (item i of ttParas) is "<8086:" then -- first we find the tag we're interested in
       repeat with j from (i + 1) to count of ttParas
           if text 1 thru 7 of (item j of ttParas) is "</8086:" then exit repeat -- we exit the loop when we hit the end tag
           set end of tagValueList to item j of ttParas
       end repeat
       exit repeat
   end if
end repeat
-- return tagValueList

-- next we extract each value from the found tags knowing that the value is between the ">" and "<" characters
set theTagValues to {}
repeat with i from 1 to count of tagValueList
   set thisTag to item i of tagValueList
   set thisTagValue to ""
   repeat with j from 1 to count of thisTag
       if item j of thisTag is ">" then
           repeat with k from (j + 1) to count of thisTag
               if item k of thisTag is "<" then exit repeat
               set thisTagValue to thisTagValue & item k of thisTag
           end repeat
           exit repeat
       end if
   end repeat
   set end of theTagValues to thisTagValue
end repeat
theTagValues

An attribute can have those characters. If you can't rename the tag to start with a non-number and not have a colon, something like this will work. I tested this (I am in Tiger):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Main title="8086:293e">
  <type>Audio</type>
  <name>Some Name</name>
  <displayname>Some Display Name</displayname>
  <download>http://somesite.com</download>
</Main>

Applescript:

set XMLfile to "Macintosh HD:Users:myUser:Desktop:TestXML.xml"
tell application "System Events"
   tell XML element 1 of contents of XML file XMLfile
       set typeText to (value of XML element "type")
       set nameText to (value of XML element "name")
   end tell
end tell

Last edited by Matt-Boy (2008-07-21 09:38:02 am)

I would agree with Matt-Boy. It is one of the requirements of XML that there be a "root" element as the 1st element. If you use changeable data as the 1st element, then you don't have a root element, to my way of thinking.

Just wanted to add my method:

set paski to do shell script "curl http://www.onthesnow.com/pennsylvania/snow.rss"

-->get all items
set paskiitems to my parsecode(paski, "<item>", "</item>")

-->build array of mountaind data
set regiondata to {}
repeat with x from 1 to count of every item of paskiitems
    set thismountain to item x of paskiitems
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to return
    set astid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
    set mountainname to my cleantags(thismountain, "<title>", "</title>", astid)
    set mountaindescription to my cleantags(thismountain, "<description>", "</description>", astid)
    set mountainlink to my cleantags(thismountain, "<guid isPermaLink=\"true\">", "</guid>", astid)
    set mountainstatus to cleantags(thismountain, "<ots:open_staus>", "</ots:open_staus>", astid)
    set mountaindepth to cleantags(thismountain, "<ots:base_depth>", "</ots:base_depth>", astid)
    set mountain48sf to cleantags(thismountain, "<ots:snowfall_48hr>", "</ots:snowfall_48hr>", astid)
    copy {mountainname, mountaindescription, mountainlink, mountainstatus, mountaindepth, mountain48sf} to end of regiondata
end repeat

return regiondata

on parsecode(code, opentag, closetag)
    set itemlist to {}
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to opentag
    set taglist to every text item of code as list
    set childtaglist to {}
    repeat with x from 2 to count of every item of taglist
        copy item x of taglist to end of childtaglist
    end repeat
   
    repeat with thisitem in childtaglist
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to closetag
        copy text item 1 of thisitem to end of itemlist
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to opentag
    end repeat
   
    return itemlist
end parsecode

on cleantags(thisitem, opentag, closetag, astid)
    try
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to opentag
        set rawitem to text item 2 of thisitem
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to closetag
        set cleanitem to text item 1 of rawitem
        -->reset the delimiters
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to astid
        return cleanitem
    on error errmsg
        display dialog "Could not clean the " & opentag & return & return & errmsg
    end try
end cleantags