Question

I have been given an XML document in a rather strange format and I need to load it into a DataSet, but unsurprisingly I get an error when I try to do so. I can see how I could transform the document into something that would work, but I’m kinda going around in circles with the XSLT stuff…

The document looks something like this:

<map>
    <entry key = "status">ok</entry>
    <entry key = "pageNum">1</entry>
    <entry key = "title">DocTitle</entry>
    <entry key = "stuff">
        <map>
            <entry key = "id">171</entry>
            <entry key = "name">StackOverflow</entry>
            <entry key = "timeZone">America/New_York</entry>
        </map>
        <map>
            <entry key = "id">172</entry>
            <entry key = "name">StackOverflow2</entry>
            <entry key = "timeZone">America/New_York</entry>
        </map>
    </entry>
</map>

and I would like to transform it into something more like this:

<map>
    <status>ok</status>
    <pageNum>1</pageNum>
    <title>DocTitle</title>
    <stuff>
        <map>
            <id>171</id>
            <name>StackOverflow</name>
            <timeZone>America/New_York</timeZone>
        </map>
        <map>
            <id>172</id>
            <name>StackOverflow2</name>
            <timeZone>America/New_York</timeZone>
        </map>
    </stuff>
</map>

I have all the code in place to run it through an XSLT transform and process the output, but I can’t get the transform itself to produce anything sensible. I really don’t think it’s as difficult as I’m making it, and I would be eternally grateful if some wise soul could throw together something that would work.

Or maybe just point me to an example or something that I could modify…

Thanks.

Answer 1

This transformation:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
 <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>

 <xsl:template match="node()|@*">
  <xsl:copy>
   <xsl:apply-templates select="node()|@*"/>
  </xsl:copy>
 </xsl:template>

 <xsl:template match="entry[@key]">
   <xsl:element name="{@key}">
     <xsl:apply-templates/>
   </xsl:element>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

when applied on the provided XML document:

<map>
    <entry key = "status">ok</entry>
    <entry key = "pageNum">1</entry>
    <entry key = "title">DocTitle</entry>
    <entry key = "stuff">
        <map>
            <entry key = "id">171</entry>
            <entry key = "name">StackOverflow</entry>
            <entry key = "timeZone">America/New_York</entry>
        </map>
        <map>
            <entry key = "id">172</entry>
            <entry key = "name">StackOverflow2</entry>
            <entry key = "timeZone">America/New_York</entry>
        </map>
    </entry>
</map>

produces the wanted, correct result:

<map>
    <status>ok</status>
    <pageNum>1</pageNum>
    <title>DocTitle</title>
    <stuff>
        <map>
            <id>171</id>
            <name>StackOverflow</name>
            <timeZone>America/New_York</timeZone>
        </map>
        <map>
            <id>172</id>
            <name>StackOverflow2</name>
            <timeZone>America/New_York</timeZone>
        </map>
    </stuff>
</map>