XSLT works for this kind of thing and its pretty easy, too. Say the file
data.xml is expected to contain the elements cow and chicken but
it doesn't:
C:\XML\Examples>cat data.xml
<data>
<pig/>
<chicken/>
<horse/>
</data>
Here's an XSLT stylesheet that checks for the the cow and chicken elements
in data.xml:
C:\XML\Examples>cat check.xsl
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="text"/>
<xsl:template match="data">
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="not(chicken)">
<xsl:message>chicken element not found</xsl:message>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:when test="not(cow)">
<xsl:message>cow element not found</xsl:message>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<xsl:message>All needed elements found</xsl:message>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
If data.xml contains both cow and chicken, you'll get a report saying that
all the needed elements are found. If not, you get a complaint:
C:\XML\Examples>saxon data.xml check.xsl
cow element not found
Hope this works for you.
Mike
Noah Genner wrote:
> Hello All,
> I'm new to all this and I'm looking for some direction.
> I need to be able to check an XML document for some specific elements, and if
> possible produce a little report on which ones are missing. The document has
> already been validated against a dtd/schema that contains approximately 270
> elements, but I need to check that the ~40 I need are present. If they aren't
> present I want to produce a little report that says which elements are not present.
> Can I do this with XSLT, or is there an easier way to do this?
>
> Thanks,
>
