Re: [xml-dev] Tool converts records to XML

Cordially agreed, Michael, and I just wanted to post the same remark, when I saw you already did it. Small supplement: Using the csv:doc function, you need not read the file content. And the separator is controlled by the 'separator' option. Thus:

csv:doc($uri, map{'separator':'tab', 'header':'yes'})

gives the parsed document. A huge advantage to have both pieces of cake - have the parsed document, and find oneself in XQuery, the master language for evaluating tree-structured information. For example, in order to get a frequency distribution of the "date" field:

declare variable $uri external;

csv:doc($uri, map{'separator':'tab', 'header':'yes'})

! (for $dateElem in //date

group by $date := $dateElem order by $date

return $date||' #'||count($dateElem))

1988 #1

2019 #2

Kind regards,

Hans-Jürgen

Am Dienstag, 15. November 2022 um 15:54:16 MEZ hat C. M. Sperberg-McQueen <cmsmcq@blackmesatech.com> Folgendes geschrieben:

Hans-Juergen Rennau <hrennau@yahoo.de> writes:

> Roger, I would find it interesting to compare an awk solution with an

> XQuery one, also considering aspects like clarity and

> extensibility. Especially interesting as the potential of XQuery for

> tool building is by and large ignored.

Agreed!

> ...

> PS. Example of an XQuery-based solution:

> declare variable $uri external;

> declare variable $sep external := '	';

> <document>{

> let $lines := unparsed-text-lines($uri)

> let $names := $lines => head() => tokenize($sep)

> for $line in tail($lines) return

> <row>{

> for $field at $pos in tokenize($line, $sep) return

> element {$names[$pos]} {$field}

> }</row>

> }</document>

This is good (and should work anywhere), but after spending a little

time on my own CSV parsing routines I realized that in BaseX, the

simplest thing to do is just to call

csv:parse(unparsed-text($uri), map { 'header': 'yes'})

That is for comma-separated values; I think for tab-separated values one

would have to specify an additional option.

I don't have time to check, but I have a dim recollection that eXist

also has a function for reading CSV.

C. M. Sperberg-McQueen

Black Mesa Technologies LLC

http://blackmesatech.com