| Abstract |
The XML Hierarchical Structure Creator (Xhsc) is a modest XML utility that can aid in generation of hierarchically structured XML from unstructured/flat XML or from flat text. Xhsc accepts a specification, written in XML, and uses that specification to transform an input document, creating an output XML document. Xhsc can also apply an XSLT stylesheet in the process of creating the output XML document. Note that Xhsc does not replace XSLT, it supplements XSLT. Xhsc can perform a particular narrow kind of transformation much more easily and quickly than XSLT can. Also, Xhsc can generate structured XML from some kinds of text in a flexible and general way. This note describes the features of Xhsc, and gives some examples of its use. Xhsc is primarily designed for use as a command-line utility, but it can also be used as a package in other Java XML processing applications. This guide describes version 1.5. |
31 January 2002
The XML Hierarchical Structure Creator (Xhsc) is a modest XML utility that can aid in generation of hierarchically structured XML from unstructured/flat XML or from flat text. Xhsc accepts a specification, written in XML, and uses that specification to transform an input document, creating an output XML document. Xhsc can also apply an XSLT stylesheet in the process of creating the output XML document. Note that Xhsc does not replace XSLT, it supplements XSLT. Xhsc can perform a particular narrow kind of transformation much more easily and quickly than XSLT can. Also, Xhsc can generate structured XML from some kinds of text in a flexible and general way. This note describes the features of Xhsc, and gives some examples of its use. Xhsc is primarily designed for use as a command-line utility, but it can also be used as a package in other Java XML processing applications.
This guide describes version 1.5.
The XML Hierarchical Structure Creator is an XML utility designed to aid in transforming line-oriented text document or flat XML documents into hierarchically structured XML documents. Xhsc does this by grouping tags together under a parent tag, as defined by an HSC specification. You can use Xhsc as a command-line utility, or as a class library in your own Java XML applications.
With respect to transforming XML, Xhsc is not as sophisticated or as powerful as XSLT; Xhsc is merely makes it easier to perform a particular kind of transformation that is very challenging and burdensome with XSLT alone. Normally, you would use Xhsc along with XSLT to transform your XML data: Xhsc can build some of the structure, and then you can use XSLT to modify and tweak the structure into exactly what you require.
In addition to transforming relatively flat-structured XML data, Xhsc can be used to transform plain text data into XML. Xhsc allows you to use regular expressions to identify structural features in the text, and allows you to specify very flexibly the kind of XML that should be generated for those structural features.
This note provides all the information you need to use Xhsc on your own XML documents and text files. It was written assuming that you are already well-versed in XML fundamentals, and that you understand the XML Information Set model. Also, while Xhsc does not absolutely need XSLT, it is intended for use in conjunction with XSLT and therefore knowlege of XSLT is also assumed. For more information, see [W3C.XML] and [W3C.XSLT].
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