XML Data Structure Hierarchy

[ANCA04]

All,

Full disclosure here, this is my first ever post to an Adobe message board, and I have been working with Adobe LiveCycle ES4 for about 2 solid months.  I have a separate program that will send a report file (in this case an Excel file) to a shared network folder, and I would like to leverage that data into my Dynamic form.  I have been using a XML tools add in, and developer tools in Excel to export an XML file I can use in LiveCycle.

Example Schema:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="true"?>

-<Root xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

     -<Row>

          <Thing1>ABCD</Thing1>

          <Thing2>1234</Thing2>

     </Row>

     -<Row>

          <Thing1>DEFG</Thing1>

          <Thing2>1357</Thing2>

     </Row>

     -<Row>

          <Thing1>HIJK</Thing1>

          <Thing2>2468</Thing2>

     </Row>

Again my JavaScript brain is still in it's infancy,  but in my form I theoretically want to import data and output a respective <Thing1> to at least one object text field, one called say <Thing1Field>.   Maybe dynamic binding isn't at all what i need to do in this instance, please read on.

What I am hoping, or attempting, to do is have an end user type a number into a number field called "Thing2Field". They click a button to get the corresponding <Thing1> in the same row as a matching <Thing2> outputed to a text field called "Thing1Field".  Make sense?  My fruitless attempts:

Root.#subform[0]::initialize - (JavaScript, client)

xfa.host.messageBox("Please select data to import to form.","Attention", 3,1);

xfa.host.importData();

Root.#subform[0].Button1::click - (JavaScript, client)

<all of the stuff>

I continue to bang by virtual Javascript head against the wall in trying to figure out what <all of the stuff> could be and where to start.  I am fairly certain if I can figure out how to get the imported data into a declared variable I can work that into a 'for' loop with some conditional statements in order to set the raw value of that text field.  My vocabulary isn't the greatest yet and a lot of the methods people come up with are amazing.  I am really looking for an example.

Some may ask why I am using the .importData(); method.  Long term in building this form I would like to create a representative node in which this imported data goes into.  I have read that importing data from XML goes directly into the root.data?? node.  If you were to import a second file it would overwrite the original becuase how the method and the DOM is setup. The data file I am working with in this example updates not so frequently and is in a different 'system' than another data file I would like to import.  This other file would update frequently and has a lot more data present, it wouldn't be bound to the form but I need to call on the data to populate certain fields from it. 

I am aware LiveCycle allows multiple instances of database connections through SQL and such, which we are moving toward, however I need to get a current working model to allow us to prove viability.  Any help you could provide would be of great assistance.  Thanks in advance for your time.

Alex

[radzmar]

Hi, you might find this useful: LiveCycle Blog: XML per Skript in Adobe Reader importieren//Import XML via Script into Adobe Reader

It shows an way to import XML data into a PDF using JavaScript and works with Acrobat and also Reader.

[ANCA04]

Thank you for that reference.  I have been reading up on this code block a little because I didn't recognize the .replace() command in there.  I see it may be leveraging the EX4 extensions in acrobat.  Is that correct?  The purpose of the .replace function according to John Brinkman is: 

"Oddly, E4X refuses to process the xml processing instruction at the front of an XML fragment.  If it’s there, you will get a syntax error: “xml is a reserved identifier”.  The workaround is to remove leading processing instructions with a regular expression such as:

sXML = sXML.replace(/^[\s\S]*?(<[^\?!])/, “$1”);"  -J. Brinkman blog 22SEP2010

It seems to load the data into the form OK, but I am curious what would the string then look like in vImportXML?  I would need to understand that variable if I am to write something that leverages the data in it correct?  Thing1's and Thing2's from above are related in the XML to the same row.  That sibling relationship is something I hope to leverage. 

I can write a loop with an if statement condition that if no number matches messagebox a 'try again'.  If the loop condition matches a Thing1 in vImportXML, I am am not sure how to output a sibling Thing2 to a 'thingField2'. 

[radzmar · Accepted solution]

The replace () is to remove unwanted contents from the XML outside the XML-elements to avoid problems in the processing. Especially comments with multoiple line can cause that the import fails.

A XML like …

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<form1>
  <page1>
<!-- This is a comment -->
      <subform1>
        <Name>John Doe</Name>
        <Value1>Lorem Ipsum</Value1>
        <Value2>Sit Amet</Value2>
      </subform1>
  </page1>
</form1>

… will be formatted into …

<form1><page1><subform1><Name>John Doe</Name><Value1>Lorem Ipsum</Value1><Value2>Sit Amet</Value2></subform1></page1></form1>

That's what the variable vImportXML will look like.

[ANCA04]

At the end of the day in order to get the drop down list to dynamically populate, the XML structure I was utilizing from the XML tools plug-in, in Microsoft Excel was creating the XML format I listed above.  You could probably write an example to get rid of the individual <row> listed above by putting all of the <Thing1>'s together and <Thing2>'s together is what worked.  Or if I wanted to maintain the relationship have <Thing1>CatInTheHat</Thing1> <Value1>Dr.Suess<Value1/>. I had to re-adjust my thinking on nodes and values in order to get this to work. 

Radzmar was spot on as usual, using the importData() method is a little clunky and his solution to import the data as a string is a good viable alternative the way I was presenting the problem.  Navigating the rules associated with the XML nodes is something I need to learn a lot more about.