Creating xml tree from AppleScript record?

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
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#1

Hello everyone!

I have a simple InDesign script - it creates a record of page properties.


tell application id "com.adobe.InDesign"
	set myDoc to active document
	set pagelist to pages of myDoc 
	set pagetable to {}
	repeat with pg in pagelist
		set pgi to {pageID:id of pg, PageName:name of pg, PageLabel:label of pg}
		copy pgi to the end of pagetable
	end repeat
end tell

OK. But how transform this record to a xml tree? Without “manually” setting the xml node names? The node names must be a “variable” names from record (I’m looking for universal mechanism wchich transform a variable name from record to node name in xml).

In current example, the result xml will be:
214
23
Book

But, how I do that?

Best wishes

#2

I have to build some XML. I ended up making a “template” of the XML structure I wanted, then inserted the proper values into the xml stream. Then outputted it as text (saved to a text file).
I use a loop to insert more copies of each node as needed.

#3

This is simple way.
But, in this case, I’m looking for universal transformer AS record->xml, without any text templates.

The name of the record = node name in xml
But, how get the name of item of the record? As simple text?

#4

It is generally advised to use the names without resort to trickery; you know the record structure, so the names are known in advance.

If you must have a “universal” method:
This one use a temporary file to get them.
This one does the same via the clipboard.

This thread discusses some ins and outs. There are others, I’m sure.

#5

Thank You.
Your post is very helpful, problem solved.

#6

Hi.

Just to get the terminology straight:

  1. What you’re building is not a “record” but a “list” containing records.
  2. Records have “properties”.
  3. Record properties have “labels” and “values”.

If the labels are all user defined, another easy way to convert them to text is:

set pagetable to {{pageID:214, PageName:23, PageLabel:"Book"}, {pageID:215, PageName:24, PageLabel:"Aardvark"}}

tell application "System Events"
	make new property list item with properties {value:pagetable}
	set {labelLists, valueLists} to {name, value} of property list items of property list items of result
end tell

labelLists --> {{"PageName", "pageID", "PageLabel"}, {"PageName", "pageID", "PageLabel"}}
valueLists --> {{23, 214, "Book"}, {24, 215, "Aardvark"}}

It would be nice to be able to use System Events’s XML Suite to create the XML text, but I’ve not been able to do anything with it. :confused:

#7

FWIW, here’s another method using ASObjC Runner to do the work for you:

script listOfRecordsToXMLString
	set theString to ""
	-- passing parameter converted to array
	set pagetable to current application's NSApp's convertedValue()
	-- get count of array items
	set theCount to pagetable's |count|()
	-- loop through; zero-based indexes
	repeat with i from 0 to (theCount as integer) - 1
		set oneItem to pagetable's objectAtIndex_(i)
		-- get all labels/keys
		set theKeys to oneItem's allKeys()
		repeat with oneKey in theKeys
			-- make XML node and get its XML string
			tell current application's NSXMLNode to set newText to elementWithName_stringValue_(oneKey, oneItem's valueForKey_(oneKey) as text)'s XMLString()
			set theString to theString & newText & return
		end repeat
	end repeat
	return theString
end script

set pagetable to {{pageID:214, PageName:23, PageLabel:"Book"}, {pageID:215, PageName:24, PageLabel:"Aardvark"}}
tell application "ASObjC Runner" to set theResult to run the script {listOfRecordsToXMLString} converting pagetable with result returned