XML Conversion Activities

A package of 3 custom activities that accept any complex XML file as input and converts it into DataTable, JSON and CSV files.

The package contains 3 custom activities for converting XML files to other data formats:

1.     XML to DataTable

2.     XML to JSON

3.     XML to CSV

These activities can handle all types of complex and nested XMLs either in a text file (specified in the input property InputXmlFilePath) with valid XML in it, or accept XML strings directly (specified in the input property InputXmlString). The output will be a CSV or JSON file, at user's designated path (specified in the input property OutputCSV/JSONFilepath), or a DataTable from the input XML.

• XML to CSV: To view the data in tabular format, the output CSV file can be opened using Excel. The first row in Excel will be the header generated from all the tag names in the XML file. In case of multi-level nested XML, it retains the complete path of each element, separated by slash '/'.
• XML to JSON: This activity converts XML in JSON format without any data loss. In case of Array, element tags are added for each array element. In case of non-array objects, XML keys are converted to JSON tags and XML values are converted to JSON inner text. The output of this activity is a .json file.
• XML to DataTable: It converts input XML to DataTable and provides the flexibility of directly applying all DataTable functions like filtering the XML Data. In case of Array, each Data row is converted to Excel Row Item. In case of non Array structure, all the tags generate headers and in case of multi-level nested XML, it retains the complete path of each element, separated by slash '/' to prevent any data loss.

The time required for this conversion is proportional to the level of nested data structure of the XML (between milliseconds to a few seconds).

Input Properties

• InputXmlFilepath - Takes the path of the text file which contains the valid XML.
• InputXmlString (optional, if InputXmlFilepath is not passed) - Takes as input the XML string. Use Read Text file > Deserialize XML > pass the generated XML with tag name.
• OutputCSV/JSONLFilePath - Takes the path of the CSV or JSON file in which the output will be generated. The CSV/JSON file will be generated at this path even if it is not present.

Output Properties

Output DataTable – It generates a DataTable from the input XML and provides an option of saving it in a DataTable type of variable.

Notes

Among InputXmlFilepath and InputXlString properties, only 1 input is allowed to be passed for all these activities and it is a mandatory input property. Output XmlFilePath and Output DataTable are mandatory output fields.

This activity caters to the need of converting XML data into tabular form by converting it to a CSV file or directly to data table as well. It provides flexibility of directly filtering XML data according to business rules, by converting it to CSV file or DataTable directly. In case of complex and nested XML, it also retains the whole path of each element in the headers, so as to prevent any data loss. The user will no longer have to write any complex logic for viewing XML data into an Excel sheet and converts XML to JSON format without any kind of data loss. User can simply provide the path of text file with XML in it or provide XML string directly and get the desired output as a CSV file, JSON file or DataTable.