Question

Can someone suggest a script to create a xml representation of all the files, alongwith the ones in the sub-directory(on Windows) by file-type. For example, if the current directory name is mypics, then for all jpg’s

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<images xmlns="http://mydomain.com/images" version="1.0">
  <image>
      <big_url>myassets/pics/funnypics/big_pics/down.jpg</big_url>
  </image>
  <image>      
      <big_url>assets/pics/funnypics/big_pics/spider.jpg</big_url>
  </image>  
</images>

then for pdf’s

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<pdfs xmlns="http://mydomain.com/pdf" version="1.0">
  <pdf>
      <big_url>myassets/pics/funnypics/big_pics/down.pdf</big_url>
  </pdf>
  <pdf>      
      <big_url>assets/pics/funnypics/big_pics/spider.pdf</big_url>
  </pdf>  
</pdfs>

since, number of filetype is unlimited, i can extend the suggested script

Answer 1

The following perl code will do the trick (maybe minus the XML file indentation):

package FilesToXml;
use IO;
use File::Find;
use XML::Writer;

use vars qw(@ISA @EXPORT @EXPORT_OK);
require Exporter;
@ISA = qw(Exporter);
@EXPORT = qw(SetRequestedType GenerateXml);

my $group_name = "";
my $file_type = "";
my $ext = "";
my $writer = "";

sub SetRequestedType
{
    $group_name = shift;
    $file_type = shift;
    $ext = shift;
}

sub wanted
{
    if ($File::Find::name =~ /\.$ext$/)
    {
        $writer->startTag($file_type);
        $writer->startTag('big_url');
        $writer->characters($File::Find::name);
        $writer->endTag();
        $writer->endTag();
    }    
}

sub GenerateXml
{
    my $filename = shift;
    my $directory = shift;

    my $output = new IO::File(">$filename");
    $writer = new XML::Writer( OUTPUT => $output );

    $writer->xmlDecl( 'UTF-8' );
    $writer->startTag( $group_name, 'xmlns' => 'http://mydomain.com/'.$group_name, 
                        'version' => '1.0' );
    find(\&wanted, $directory);
    $writer->endTag();  
}

package main;

FilesToXml::SetRequestedType('docs', 'doc', 'docx');
FilesToXml::GenerateXml("output.xml", ".");

You basically need to call SetRequestedType with the type of the files group, the string describing a single file and the file extension. Then you just need to call GenerateXml with the XML output file name and the directory to search under.

It works using ActivePerl on Windows. May need some minor adjustments in other environments.