I was given the task to convert great amount of RTF tables into XML ones (around or way more than 100.000), but I have no idea how to even start it and i cannot get help from the lead developer, because ironically he had never written a line of code.
I was thinking about c++ as I need t to be fast, but I'm open to any ideas.
What I need is some information I can start the project with or any library/program I could use for my help, thank you.
EDIT: I have XSD schemas to work with.
Found the solution after looking for a while. I can use LibreOffice to save it as html or other various forms that will keep the table as it is and also give a clear code i can pull an XSD on to make it valid also.
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I am trying to create C++ code that allows User Input in selecting a variety of fields, then it will calculate many different angles and show the users the results, as well as a graph.
However, it has been suggested to us by our lecturer that it may be a good idea to write the code to these calculations etc in C++, then input the results into Excel.
Does anyone have any idea how to do this? Literally looking for a way for the user to fill in the required values on C++ and then to be AUTOMATICALLY taken to the excel file to show the results in the table and graph format.
If this is not possible, is there a way to display the results in the table and graph format through C++?
Thanks very much in advance
Excel provides COM interface which you can use from your C++ application.
This can be done in the way described in this article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216686
This link might also be useful:
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/10886/How-to-use-Managed-C-to-Automate-Excel
I think the second link would be better for you as its more of a step by step guide which should help you to workout the answer.
Use COM Automation to automate excel.
The best way to do this is to use the vole library by Matthew Wilson at
http://vole.sourceforge.net/
Take a look at the examples. I do not think there is an example for excel, but there is one for microsoft word at http://www.codeproject.com/KB/COM/VOLE_word.aspx
I have used vole in the past, and it makes it a whole lot easier
OK, so here's the background:
We have a third-party piece of software that does a lot of complicated stuff to generate an XML file from a lot of tables based on a wide array of business rules. The software allows you to apply an XSL transformation by supplying an XSLT file as part of its workflow, before continuing on in the process, which is usually an upload to one or more servers, based on more business rules.
Here's the problem:
One of the elements (with more on the way) this application is processing contains RTF text, and needs to be converted into formatted HTML before being uploaded. There are no means of transforming the XML inside the application other than through an XSLT file, and once we output the file, we cannot resume the workflow. My original thought was, "Easy! someone must have written a few XSL transforms for converting RTF to formatted HTML!" Hours of searching later, I must conclude I either suck at searching or it's awfully obscure.
Disclaimers:
I know the software is pretty darned limited; I'm stuck with it.
I know there are a lot of third-party tools to do this; they are not available to me because I would need to run them externally.
I know that this is not a pretty or efficient thing to do with XSLT. Changing that is not an option for me at this point.
If I cannot find a means to do this through pure XSL transforms, I will need to output the files locally, run the extra process, and take the destination routing on through a custom process. I really don't want to do that.
Does anyone have access to an XSL transformation function/ scheme that will allow me to do this natively in the application? Perhaps a series of regular expressions I could use or something?
So it turns out that external scripts can be invoked from the XSLT. It seems I will be using another scripting language to get this to work. I'm a little bummed there was no other answer available.
(Not sure if this should be CW or not, you're welcome to comment if you think it should be).
At my workplace, we have many many different file formats for all kinds of purposes. Most, if not all, of these file formats are just written in plain text, with no consistency. I'm only a student working part-time, and I have no experience with using xml in production, but it seems to me that using xml would improve productivity, as we often need to parse, check and compare these outputs.
So my questions are: given that I can only control one small application and its output (only - the inputs are formats that are used in other applications as well), is it worth trying to change the output to be xml-based? If so, what are the best known ways to do that in C++ (i.e., xml parsers/writers, etc.)? Also, should I also provide a plain-text output to make it easy for the users (which are also programmers) to get used to xml? Should I provide a script to translate xml-plaintext? What are your experiences with this subject?
Thanks.
Don't just use XML because it's XML.
Use XML because:
other applications (that only accept XML) are going to read your output
you have an hierarchical data structure that lends itself perfectly for XML
you want to transform the data to other formats using XSL (e.g. to HTML)
EDIT:
A nice personal experience:
Customer: your application MUST be able to read XML.
Me: Er, OK, I will adapt my application so it can read XML.
Same customer (a few days later): your application MUST be able to read fixed width files, because we just realized our mainframe cannot generate XML.
Amir, to parse an XML you can use TinyXML which is incredibly easy to use and start with. Check its documentation for a quick brief, and read carefully the "what it does not do" clause. Been using it for reading and all I can say is that this tiny library does the job, very well.
As for writing - if your XML files aren't complex you might build them manually with a string object. "Aren't complex" for me means that you're only going to store text at most.
For more complex XML reading/writing you better check Xerces which is heavier than TinyXML. I haven't used it yet I've seen it in production and it does deliver it.
You can try using the boost::property_tree class.
http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_43_0/doc/html/property_tree.html
http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_43_0/doc/html/boost_propertytree/tutorial.html
http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_43_0/doc/html/boost_propertytree/parsers.html#boost_propertytree.parsers.xml_parser
It's pretty easy to use, but the page does warn that it doesn't support the XML format completely. If you do use this though, it gives you the freedom to easily use XML, INI, JSON, or INFO files without changing more than just the read_xml line.
If you want that ability though, you should avoid xml attributes. To use an attribute, you have to look at the key , which won't transfer between filetypes (although you can manually create your own subnodes).
Although using TinyXML is probably better. I've seen it used before in a couple of projects I've worked on, but don't have any experience with it.
Another approach to handling XML in your application is to use a data binding tool, such as CodeSynthesis XSD. Such a tool will generate C++ classes that hide all the gory details of parsing/serializing XML -- all that you see are objects corresponding to your XML vocabulary and functions that you can call to get/set the data, for example:
Person p = person ("person.xml");
cout << p.name ();
p.name ("John");
p.age (30);
ofstream ofs ("person.xml");
person (ofs, p);
Here's what previous SO threads have said on the topic. Please add others you know of that are relevant:
What is the best open XML parser for C++?
What is XML good for and when should i be using it?
What are good alternative data formats to XML?
BTW, before you decide on an XML parser, you may want to make sure that it will actually be able to parse all XML documents instead of just the "simple" ones, as discussed in this article:
Are you using a real XML parser?
How can i make user to downlaoad a excel from the django app.i HAVE A MODEL WHICH gives the report.Now i want a option from user can download the file in excel form.ANy Solution
You can output the data as .csv which is easily imported into MS Excel.
http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/outputting-csv/
EDIT
After I wrote that I got curious if there actually was some way to do it directly to excel format and found:
http://www.python-excel.org/
That made me wonder why you didn't google your question before posted it here.....
I'm not sure quite what you're asking. If you're asking how can you generate output that's able to be read into Excel, IMO your best bet is using a CSV (see amoeba's response) as that's pretty generic. There are ways of using true Excel formats as well.
I'm thinking though that perhaps you're asking how you can have a user click a link (or whatever) and have Excel pop up with your data in it? (IOW, you've already generated the output).
I suppose I'd say a few things:
1) It shouldn't be specific to Excel, many users use things like OO.o (thus my CSV suggestion)
2) It's going to vary depending on their browser and how they have it set up. Personally, I don't like pages opening up the "proper application" so I turn all of that off - other people enable it.
I have to parse the XML file and build objects representation based on that, now once I get all these data I create entries in various database for these data objects. I have to do second pass over that for value as in the first pass all I could do is build the assets in various databases. and in second pass I get the values for all the data and put it in the database.
I have a feeling that this can be done in a single pass but I just want to see what are your opinions. As I am just a student who started with professional work, experienced ppl please help.
Can someone who have ideas or done similar work, please provide some light on the topic so that I can think over the possibility of the work and get the prototype going based on your suggestion.
Thanks a lot for your precious time, I honestly appreciate it.
You might be interested in learning several techniques of building XML parsers like DOM or SAX. As it is said in SAX description the only thing which requires second pass could be the XML validation but not the creating the tree.
Beside DOM and SAX parsing, you can use XQuery for querying data from XML files.It is fast, robust and efficient.
here is a link
You can use Qt Xml module for DOM ,SAX and XQuery, btw it is open source.
Another option is xml - C++ data binding, Here is the link.You can create C++ codes from definition directly.It is an elegant solution.
EDIT:
the latter one is at compile time.
You can also use Apache Licensed http://xmlbeansxx.touk.pl/. It works under Windows and Linux.
you could take a look at the somewhat simpler 'pull' api called stax instead of using sax (event based).