Formatting repeating block of strings

[viadisky]

Hi,

I have this data to work with:

<ConfigPolicyVO>
<ConfigPolicyID>61</ConfigPolicyID>
<ConfigPolicyName>access-list 99</ConfigPolicyName>
<Description>access-list 99</Description>
<Comments></Comments>
<Status>1</Status>
<CreateDate>2006-02-23 17:10:47:000</CreateDate>
<LastModifiedDate>2006-02-27 16:12:50:000</LastModifiedDate>
<LastModifiedUserID>1</LastModifiedUserID>
<InUse>1</InUse>
</ConfigPolicyVO>

<ConfigPolicyVO>
<ConfigPolicyID>35</ConfigPolicyID>
<ConfigPolicyName>Cisco Interfaces Up Down</ConfigPolicyName>
<Description>Cisco Interface Up Down</Description>
<Comments>Cisco Interface Up Down</Comments>
<Status>1</Status>
<CreateDate>2005-12-14 12:03:18:000</CreateDate>
<LastModifiedDate>2006-02-27 16:14:41:000</LastModifiedDate>
<LastModifiedUserID>1</LastModifiedUserID>
<InUse>1</InUse>
</ConfigPolicyVO>

How easy it is to format it this way?

ConfigPolicyName,Description,Status
access-list 99,access-list 99,1
Cisco Interfaces Up Down,Cisco Interface Up Down,1

Please help

Cheers!

 

[stevexff]

Try XML::Simple. It should read your XML into a hash - note I've had to put an enclosing <root>...</root> around the whole thing to make it well-formed xml.

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;
use XML::Simple;

my @xml = <DATA>;
chomp @xml;
my $stuff = XMLin(join("", @xml)) or die ;
print Dumper($stuff);

__DATA__
<root>
<ConfigPolicyVO>
<ConfigPolicyID>61</ConfigPolicyID>
<ConfigPolicyName>access-list 99</ConfigPolicyName>
<Description>access-list 99</Description>
<Comments></Comments>
<Status>1</Status>
<CreateDate>2006-02-23 17:10:47:000</CreateDate>
<LastModifiedDate>2006-02-27 16:12:50:000</LastModifiedDate>
<LastModifiedUserID>1</LastModifiedUserID>
<InUse>1</InUse>
</ConfigPolicyVO>

<ConfigPolicyVO>
<ConfigPolicyID>35</ConfigPolicyID>
<ConfigPolicyName>Cisco Interfaces Up Down</ConfigPolicyName>
<Description>Cisco Interface Up Down</Description>
<Comments>Cisco Interface Up Down</Comments>
<Status>1</Status>
<CreateDate>2005-12-14 12:03:18:000</CreateDate>
<LastModifiedDate>2006-02-27 16:14:41:000</LastModifiedDate>
<LastModifiedUserID>1</LastModifiedUserID>
<InUse>1</InUse>
</ConfigPolicyVO>
</root>

XMLin() also accepts a file name. Run the above to show you the contents of the hash. Then all you need to do is print out the bits you want...

 

[viadisky]

Hi Stevexff,

Thanks for your suggestion. I'm still learning Perl as of the moment so my question is really basic, sorry.

These lines:
use Data:umper;
use XML::Simple;

Do I need to download these?

Thanks again,
Maria

 

[stevexff]

If you are running on Windows, no, as the current version of ActivePerl ships with them as standard. Open a command window and

ppm query *

which will tell you what packages you have installed. If you are on *nix, you can get them easily from CPAN.

XML::Simple handles parsing simple XML like your example really easily. Data:umper is great when you have a complex data structure and you want to know what's inside it.