Question

I need to get key/value pairs from XML to populate member info on a website. Here’s a sample of the XML:

<a:PObject xmlns:b="http://schemas.datacontract.org">
<b:CanUpsert>true</b:CanUpsert>
<b:Fields xmlns:c="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/Arrays">
    <c:KeyValueOfstringanyType>
        <c:Key>FirstName</c:Key>
        <c:Value i:type="d:long" xmlns:d="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">Joe</c:Value>
    </c:KeyValueOfstringanyType>
    <c:KeyValueOfstringanyType>
        <c:Key>LastName</c:Key>
        <c:Value i:type="d:long" xmlns:d="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">Mama</c:Value>
    </c:KeyValueOfstringanyType>
</b:Fields>
</a:PObject>

I am new to XML and am having a tough time with the prefixes. I am using the following to give me an array of Key/Value pairs:

<cfset keyValue = xmlSearch(soapBody,"//*[local-name()='Key'] | //*[local-name()='Value']") />

I am able to reference the data I need by index; this works well for the most part, but for some reason not every record has its data in the same place. That is, #keyValue[4]# works in 95% of the records, but in a few, gives me a totally different value!

I have read many posts on this subject here and elsewhere; none of them get me around the prefix issue. For example, I can access an element by name using

<cfset firstNameKey = XmlSearch(soapBody,"//*[ text() = 'FirstName' ]") />

but how would I get the corresponding value? I’ve tried using following-sibling, but must not have done it correctly… I even tried stripping out all of the prefixes — nothing worked after that!

Thank you all so much in advance for any advice or suggestions you can give me. As I said, I am new to XML (and not that advanced in CF either) and am looking forward to getting pointed in the right direction. Thanks alot!

Answer 1

I would suggest a simpler means than xpath – convert the XML string to an object with xmlparse() and then iterate over the elements you need, using cf code to construct the name-value pairs. Cfdump the XML object to see what the resulting structure looks like – should be pretty straightforward. Give it a shot.

edit

After working on this a bit, I have some working code for you:

<cfsavecontent variable="xmldata">
<PObject xmlns:b="http://schemas.datacontract.org">
<b:CanUpsert>true</b:CanUpsert>
<b:Fields xmlns:c="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/Arrays">
    <c:KeyValueOfstringanyType>
        <c:Key>FirstName</c:Key>
        <c:Value type="d:long" xmlns:d="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">Joe</c:Value>
    </c:KeyValueOfstringanyType>
    <c:KeyValueOfstringanyType>
        <c:Key>LastName</c:Key>
        <c:Value type="d:long" xmlns:d="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">Mama</c:Value>
    </c:KeyValueOfstringanyType>
</b:Fields>
</PObject>
</cfsavecontent>

<cfset xmlObj = xmlParse(xmldata)>
<cfset valueArray = xmlSearch(xmlObj,"//*[local-name()='KeyValueOfstringanyType']")>
<cfset nameValuePairs = {}>
<cfloop from="1" to="#ArrayLen(valueArray)#" index="i">
        <cfset name = xmlSearch(valueArray[i], "c:Key")[1].xmlText>
        <cfset value = xmlSearch(valueArray[i], "c:Value")[1].xmlText>
        <cfset nameValuePairs[name] = value>
</cfloop>
<cfdump var="#nameValuePairs#">

Note, I had to modify your xml sample slightly, since there were some references to namespaces that were not defined. Anyhow – the above works for me.