CapeSoft.Com
Clarion Accessories
xFiles
Documentation
CapeSoft Logo

CapeSoft xFiles
Documentation

Download Latest Version FAQ History XCell Classes
Installed Version Latest Version

Introduction

CapeSoft xFiles is a collection of classes for hand-coders. It was built primarily to provide a simple, yet exceptionally high-performance method to convert xml files or strings to Clarion data structures, and vice-versa. It provides the following functionality: Note: xFiles is primarily for hand coders. This means you will need to call the xFiles methods within your code.

One of the best things about xFiles is that is it really, really fast (yeah, really, you will be surprised just how fast it is!). This means that it outperforms other XML toolkits (for example the Microsoft SAX toolkit).

Features of the xFilesXML Class

Limitations

Adding xFiles to an APP

Global Extension

To Activate xFiles in an application go to the Global Extensions for the App, and add the Activate CapeSoft xFiles global extension.
On the Options tab you can set default options for the local extensions, but usually the default settings are left as-is.

If this is a multi-dll system then xFiles is usually exported from one of the apps. On this app go to the Multi-DLL tab and make sure both options are ticked on. This is usually done in the Data (or Root) DLL - the one which is exporting all the File Declarations. In all the other apps in the system (EXE's and DLL's) go to the Multi-DLL tab and make sure only the first option is ticked on. (For other DLL's this will be the default setting, but remember to do it for the EXE apps as well.)

Local Extension

The local extension is an easy way to declare an object in a procedure. You can add as many of these as you like (each with a unique Object name) to a procedure.

Adding xFiles to a Hand-Code Project

To add xFiles to a hand-coded project (with no APP and hence no Global Extension template) do the following;
  1. Add
    include('xFiles.Inc'),Once
    to your main module
  2. Add the xFilesLinkMode and xFilesDllMode project defines to your project. Set
    xFilesLinkMode=>1
    if the class should be linked into the project, and
    xFilesDllMode=>1
    if the object is exported from another DLL.
  3. When you want to declare an xFiles object in a procedure you can declare it as
    xml  xFileXML
    If you wish to derive methods (see methods documentation) then declare it with the method (for example)

    xml         class(xFileXML)
    AssignField   Procedure (Long DataStartPos,Long DataEndPos),Long, virtual
                End


    and then add the derived procedure (adding your own code)

    xml.AssignField Procedure (Long DataStartPos,Long DataEndPos)
      Code
      parent.AssignField(DataStartPos,DataEndPos)


    For a full list of method declarations see the xfiles.inc file.

 

What is XML?

XML is an acronym for Extensible Markup Language. It is an open standard for describing data in a standard, easy to use, format. XML uses a similar tag structure as HTML, however XML tags define what elements contain, and not the format for displaying them. While HTML uses predefined tags, XML allows tags to be defined by the developer. This makes XML extremely flexible, while still being easy to use. XML is an excellent format for transferring and storing information.

XML is more Rigid than HTML, it is not tolerant of errors, XML documents need to be "well formed", which means they must comply with fairly rigid rules.

XML and HTML Tags

Following are examples of XML and HTML tags. Note that the XML statements define data content, whereas the HTML lines deal with fonts and display (boldface). XML defines "what it is," and HTML defines "how it looks."

XML

<firstName>Maria</firstName>
<lastName>Roberts</lastName>
<dateBirth>10-29-52</dateBirth>

HTML

<font>Maria Roberts</font>
<b>October 29, 1952</b>

Advantages of XML

For more information visit http://www.w3.org/XML/. XML definition and information based on content from http://www.answers.com/topic/xml.

xFileXML Quick Start Guide - Loading, Importing and Parsing XML

Keen to get started? Or just don't like wading through all the documentation? This section is just for you - the basics on how to get xFiles working as quickly and simply as possible.

Things you need to know to load XML

XML Files come in all shapes and sizes, but reading them into a Clarion structure can usually be done with a single line of code. In additional the File can be either stored on disk, or already be in RAM as a string. Importing from either of these is trivial.

Creating the xml object in your procedure.

You can use the xFiles extension template to add an XFiles object to your procedure. Or you can hand-code the object declaration in the data section of your procedure. It'll look something like this;
xml   xFileXML

Matching the field names to the XML.

The secret to the simplicity of the Load is that the NAME (or External Name attribute) of the fields you are loading matches the xml tags in the xml file. For example, if you have xml that looks like this:

<xml>
    <server>www.capesoft.com</server>
    <port>80</port>
</xml>

then your group should have the same field names:

Settings    Group
Server        String(80)
Port          Long
            End

xFiles simply matches up the names and the tags, and copies the data across for you.

In some cases the xml tags have names that are not legal Clarion field names. Or you may just want to change the tag name to match your field name. In this case set the External Name to match the tag name. For example:

<xml>
    <web-server>www.capesoft.com</web-server>
    <web-port>80</web-port>
</xml>

then in your group set the external names:

Whatever    Group
Server        String(80),Name('web-server')
Port          Long,Name('web-port')
            End

Attributes

XML allows attributes to be assigned to a tag. For example;

<xml>
    <server protocol="http">www.capesoft.com</server>
    <port>80</port>
</xml>

This is equivalent to;

<xml>
    <server>www.capesoft.com</server>
    <protocol>http</protocol>
    <port>80</port>
</xml>

xFiles parses incoming attributes exactly as if they were tags. So the group for the above would be

Whatever    Group
Protocol      String(10)
Server        String(80),Name('web-server')
Port          Long,Name('web-port')
            End

TIP: The order of the fields in the group is not important, except in the case where multiple fields have the same external name.
TIP: For more on Creating XML that contains attributes, see here.

XML containing structures inside

Xml can contain a structure inside a structure. For example;

<xml>
    <server>www.capesoft.com</server>
    <protocol>http</protocol>
    <port>80</port>
    <logging>
      <local>1</local>
      <summary>1</summary>
    </logging>
</xml>


This can be matched in clarion by placing a group inside your group.

Whatever    Group
Protocol      String(10)
Server        String(80)
Port          Long
Logging       Group
Local           Long
Summary         Long
              End
            End

XML containing multiple records

In multi-record XML xFiles needs to know the FileBoundary and the RecordBoundary. These properties tell xFiles what part of the xml file to parse, and most importantly when a record is complete. For example in the following xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="US-ASCII"?>
<table>
  <item>
    <name>Bruce</name>
     <age>29</age>
  </item>
  <item>
    <name>Bob</name>
     <age>40</age>
  </item>
</table>

The file boundary is <table> (since all the records fall between <table> and </table>) and the record boundary is <item> (since the data we are interested in, the name and age, falls between <item> and </item>)

We can store this xml file in a Queue, which would look something like this;
NamesQueue    Queue
name           String(20)
age            Long
              End

TIP: The first step is looking at the XML file in question and deciding on the most appropriate structure to load it into. A Group is best if the xml contains a "single record" and is typically used for program settings and things like that. If the structure contains a repeating structure (in other words, multiple records) then a Queue or File is more appropriate. Of course an In-Memory file can be used as a File rather than using a Queue.

TIP: Although a valid XML file always has a single FileBoundary, that wraps the XML from top to bottom, not all systems generate XML that conforms to this standard. So xFiles allows the FileBoundary to be blank. If it is blank, then xFiles parses the file as if there is no file boundary. In the case of a Group, it is possible to set the RecordBoundary blank, and still have a valid XML file. For example;

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="US-ASCII"?>
<data>
  <server>www.capesoft.com</server>
  <port>80</port>
</data>

In this case the FileBoundary should be set to blank and the RecordBoundary should be set to data.

XML with Attributes

An alternative approach to XML is the use of attributes. This is just another way of storing information. xFiles treats attributes on the record boundary exactly as if they were separate fields. For example;

<record firstname="bruce" lastname="brown">
   <dob>1/1/2000</dob>
</record>


is processed as if it was;

<record>
   <firstname>bruce</firstname>
   <lastname>brown</lastname>
   <dob>1/1/2000</dob>
</record>


 Lastly, there is a special case where the xml you are parsing looks like this;

<product>1</product>
<product>2</product>
<product>3</product>

In this case there is a list of products, where each <product> tag symbolizes both a complete record, and the field name. Or, to describe it another way, in this xml the File boundary AND the Record Boundary are both missing. In this situation you call the .Load method as normal, and you must include both the file, and record boundaries in the call, as blank strings.

Tag Case

XML is unfortunately case sensitive. This adds a layer of complexity to it since Clarion is a case-insensitive language. Fortunately this complexity is not difficult to manage. This primary mechanism is the use of the TagCase property. This can be set to one of XF:CaseLower, XF:CaseUpper, XF:CaseAsIs or XF:CaseAny.

In most cases, for a .Load XF:CaseAny is an appropriate option.

For a .Save it gets more complex because the case is usually determined by the program you are talking to. You can force all the tags to be lower, or upper, case using XF:CaseLower and XF:CaseUpper respectively. If the tags have mixed case then your structure will need External Names on all the components, and use XF:CaseAsIs.

Being explicit about the case before a load or save is recommended.

Loading an XML File from the disk into a Clarion Structure

Once you have determined the data structure you will be using, if it is a Queue or a File, you also need to determine the File Boundary and Record Boundary. Once you know that then importing the XML file is a single line of code.
xml.Load(Structure,XmlFileName,[FileBoundary],[RecordBoundary])

The last 2 parameters are optional in the case of a Group, but it's always better to include them if you know what they are.

For example;
xml.start()
xml.TagCase = XF:CaseAny
xml.Load(NamesQueue,'c:\temp\names.xml','table','item')


or

xml.start()
xml.TagCase = XF:CaseAny
xml.Load(Settings,'.\settings.xml')

Loading an XML File from a string into a Clarion Structure

This is just as easy as loading it from a file. The syntax of the load method changes slightly to accommodate the name, and length, of the string instead of the file name.
xml.Load(Structure,String,Length,[FileBoundary],[RecordBoundary])

For example;
xml.Load(Settings,SomeString,len(clip(SomeString)))
or
xml.Load(NamesQueue,net.packet.bindata,net.packet.bindatalen,'table',item')

Tip: Because the String parameter is passed as a pointer, you can't put a constant in here, you must use a variable. In other words the following will  fail to compile;

xml.Load(Settings,'<server>www.capesoft.com</server>',100)

Loading XML from the Web into a Clarion Structure

When two programs want to communicate across the web they often pass their information formatted as XML. Web Services are nothing more than servers that answer "Questions" using XML. This XML is usually wrapped in a SOAP envelope, but not always. A SOAP envelope is nothing more than some extra XML stuff included in the packet.

In short, you do not need to be at all worried about Web Services, or SOAP. It's all just XML, and xFiles can handle it just like any other XML. However it arrives, it will be available to you as a string, and you can parse this string into a Clarion structure just as described in the section above.

Tip: Interacting with a Web Service typically consists of 2 parts. A Request, and a Response. This section deals with handling the Response. For more information on forming the Request, see the section Creating SOAP requests.

If, for example, you have used a NetTalk WebClient object to fetch the XML from the server, then you would add a single line of code into the .PageReceived method to parse the incoming reply into a Group, Queue or File. For example, the Convert example does it with this line;

xml.load(resultGroup,self.thispage.getvalueptr(),self.thispage.length(),'','ChangeLengthUnitResponse')

If that page was an RSS feed, then the following line would copy the feed into a Queue.

xml.load(RssQueue,self.thispage.getvalueptr(),self.thispage.length(),'channel','item')

The Queue declaration would look something like this;

RssQueue  QUEUE,PRE(rss)
Title       STRING(255)
Link        STRING(255)
Description STRING(1024)
          END

Loading into a structure with a pointer

There are times when you are not able to dictate the maximum size of the incoming xml field. For example say you had an XML structure that looked like this;

<group>
    <id>1</id>
    <image>xxx</image>
</group>


Usually this would match a clarion group structure like this;

axg   Group
id      Long
image   String(255)
      End


In the above group the maximum size of the string is arbitrarily set as 255 characters. The XML may contain a longer image, but only the first 255 characters would be in the group. Of course something like an image may be very large, so it's difficult and undesirable to place an upper limit on the size it can be. The solution to this is to make the field in the group a pointer. In this case;

axg    Group
id       Long
image    &String
       End


The key here is that right before xFiles places the data into the string it needs to get sufficient memory from the OS. To do this means you need to add a bit of embed code into the AssignField method.

There are two different methods called AssignField - the one to embed code into is the one that takes two LONG parameters. The code goes before the parent call. For example;

 if lower(self.CurrentTag) = 'image'
    axg.image &= new string(DataEndPos - DataStartPos + 1)
    self.CurrentField &= axg.image
end


As you can see DataEndPos and DataStartPos determine the length of the data you are wanting to save, and CurrentField is reset to the newly gotten memory.

Note that this memory has been added to your structure, and you are responsible to DISPOSE it when it is no longer needed.
Specifically you MUST manually dispose the field before the procedure ends or your program will leak memory.

This is especially true if you are using a pointer in a Queue. You must DISPOSE the field (axg.image in this case) for each record in the queue before the queue record is deleted or the queue is FREEed.

Groups and Queues allow for pointers, Files do not.

Loading into a structure with a StringTheory pointer

This is related to the case above, but in this situation you want to load the string-of-undetermined-length into a StringTheory object instead of a string pointer.  In this case the group declaration looks like this;

xmlGroup group
id         Long
image      &StringTheory
          end


And the code in AssignField looks like this;

if lower(self.CurrentTag) = 'image'
  xmlgroup.Image &= new(StringTheory)
  xmlgroup.Image.SetValue(self.BinData [DataStartPos : DataEndPos])
  return ReturnValue
end


It is important that this comes before the parent call, and in this case there's a RETURN before the parent call.

One difference to this approach to the &String mentioned above, is that the contents of the StringTheory object will be exactly the contents of the XML. No decoding of CDATA, nor ampersand decoding, nothing like that occurs. If you need to do any decoding etc then you can use StringTheory methods to do that after the call to SetValue.

Loading Parent and Child records at the same time

Although XML is a specification for explaining the content of a text file, it does not dictate the structural nature of the text file. For example the following three xml files contain the same information, but the structure of the xml file is different. And it should be noted that these are only three of many possible configurations.

Layout 1

In this layout the line items are included in the xml file, but are not inside the Invoice tag. Each LineItem explicitly includes a link to the Invoice that it belongs to.

<invoice>
  <number>4</number>
  <customer>Fred</customer>
</invoice>
<lineitem>
  <invoice>4</invoice>
  <product>xFiles</product>
</lineitem>
<lineitem>
  <invoice>4</invoice>
  <product>NetTalk</product>
</lineitem>


Layout 2

In this layout the line items are inside the Invoice tag, however they still explicitly link to the Invoice in question.

<invoice>
  <number>4</number>
  <customer>Fred</customer>
  <lineitem>
    <invoice>4</invoice>
    <product>xFiles</product>
  </lineitem>
  <lineitem>
    <invoice>4</invoice>
    <product>NetTalk</product>
  </lineitem>
</invoice>


In simple situations the Layout 1 case and the Layout 2 case, can easily be handled using a two pass approach. Import the file twice, once for the invoices, and once for the line items. Once the two imports are completed all the necessary records for both tables will have been imported. However there may be cases where the more complicated method, which is required for Layout 3, has some advantages.

Layout 3

In the third layout the line items are inside the invoice, but there is no explicit link. Rather the position of the line item, in relation to the invoice, determines which record the line items belong to.

<invoices>
  <invoice>
    <number>4</number>
    <customer>Fred</customer>
    <lineitems>
      <lineitem>
        <product>xFiles</product>
      </lineitem>
      <lineitem>
        <product>NetTalk</product>
      </lineitem>
    </lineitems>
  </invoice>
</invoices>


For layout three it is necessary to parse the child records as the parent record is being parsed because otherwise there is no way to link child records to their parent. xFiles includes an example, called inv.app, which is in your \examples\xfiles\ParentChild folder. It is recommended that you take a moment to look at this example to see the following explanation in action.

The basic strategy for doing a multi-level import is to create 2, or more, xFiles objects. Each object is responsible for one target structure. So in the layout above there is one Xfiles object for the Invoice table (xml1), and one for the LineItems table (xml2). As xml1 reaches a lineitems tag, it calls xml2 with that part of the xml file. Using this strategy there's no limit to the number of levels of children in the original xml file.

In this situation the child items are not "bounded" by a tag - there are just multiple items in the invoice tag. For a list which is not bounded see Layout 4 below.

InvoiceQueue   Queue
Number           Long
Customer         String(20)
                End


LineItemsQueue  Queue
InvoiceNumber     Long
Product           String(100)
                End


Notice in the above declaration an extra field (InvoiceNumber) is added to the LineItemsQueue to link back to the parent invoice.

The Load statement is pretty standard;

xml1.start()
xml1.TagCase = xf:caseLower
xml1.load(InvoiceQueue,'invoices.xml','invoices','invoice')

But in the

xml1.AssignField PROCEDURE (String pString)

method add some code before the parent call.
Hint: there are two AssignField methods, with different parameters, so make sure you install in the correct one.

If self.currentTag = 'lineitems'
  Clear(LineItemsQueue)
! clears the queue buffer.
  xml2.start()
  xml2.FreeQueueBeforeLoad = false
  xml2.tagcase = xf:caseLower
  xml2.load(self,LineItemsQueue,pString,'lineitems','lineitem')
  Return
End


The very important thing to notice here is that it's a second xml object (xml2) which is being called here. The self parameter passes the xml1 object to xml2.

Additionally code is needed for the SetFieldPointer method. Since lineitems is not actually a field in InvoiceQueue, it is necessary to indicate to the class that we plan to process this tag. This is done in the SetFieldPointer method.

xml1.SetFieldPointer PROCEDURE (String pTag)
ReturnValue Long

  CODE
! Usually the tags match a field in the structure.
! However although the <items> tag is not part of the structure,
! we have special plans for it, so store the tag, and return 0,
! which means "field located".

  If pTag = 'lineitems'
! remember xml is typically case sensitive.
    self.CurrentTag = pTag
    Return 0
  End


Lastly, we need to set that extra InvoiceNumber field which was added to the child queue. This is done in the InsertFileRecord method (if you are importing into a Table) or the AddQueueRecord if you are adding to a queue (as we are in this example.)

Very Important: Since it is the xml2 object which is importing the line items, this code needs to go into the xml2.AddQueueRecord method.


xml2.AddQueueRecord PROCEDURE (Long pFirst=0)
  CODE
  LineItemsQueue.InvoiceNumber = InvoiceQueue.Number



Layout 4

Layout 4 is a slight adjustment on Layout 3, which necessitates some small adjustments to the code.

First the structure, note that in this case there is no wrapper (<lineitems>) around the list of items.

<invoice>
  <number>4</number>
  <customer>Fred</customer>
  <lineitem>
    <product>xFiles</product>
  </lineitem>
  <lineitem>
    <product>NetTalk</product>
  </lineitem>
</invoice>


The code becomes

xml1.AssignField PROCEDURE (String pString)
  CODE
  If self.currentTag = 'lineitem'
    Clear(LineItemsQueue) ! clears the queue buffer.
    xml2.start()
    xml2.FreeQueueBeforeLoad = false
    xml2.tagcase = xf:caseLower
    xml2.load(self,LineItems,pString,'','lineitem')
    Return
  End


The code in SetFieldPointer method, and the InsertFileRecord, or AddQueueRecord remains the same as for Layout 3 - except the tag name in SetFieldPointer changes from 'lineitems' to 'lineitem'.

Programming Tip

The technique will multiple classes, as described above in Layout 3 and Layout 4 can be used to parse XML of any depth. Simply add more xml objects as required. It is recommended that objects not be re-used for multiple (different) sections of the XML. Rather create as many XML objects as you need. Trying to reuse objects serves no purpose, and makes the embedded code more complicated.

Adjusting incoming data records before they are saved

When importing into a table or queue, you may want to add your own code to massage the record just before it is added. Fortunately two methods exist to make this easy to do.

Consider the case where you have a table that contains a number of fields which match fields in an XML file. Loading the XML into the table is straight-forward. But let us assume there are also two extra fields, say ImportDate and ImportTime which need to be primed when the incoming records are added.
To do this add embed code to the InsertFileRecord method, before the parent call. For example;

xml.InsertFileRecord PROCEDURE ()
  CODE
  cus:ImportDate = today()
  cus:ImportTime = clock()
  PARENT.InsertFileRecord ()


The call to InsertFileRecord does the file driver ADD command, so the ERRORCODE can be tested immediately after the PARENT call if you need to handle the error.

A similar approach is used for a Queue, except the method in question is called AddQueueRecord.

Formatting or Deformating incoming XML fields

It is possible that an incoming XML field will need to be reformatted as it is being imported. For example the incoming xml may contain a date in yyyy/mm/dd format that needs to be converted to Clarion LONG format for use in a group, queue or table.

The correct place to put this code is in the AssignField method. Note that here are two AssignField methods - you need to embed in the one prototyped as

xFileXML.AssignField Procedure (String pString)

You can add code before the parent call which assigns the incoming pString parameter into  the appropriate field. The field currently being dealt with is in the CurrentTag property. For example;

xFileXML.AssignField Procedure (String pString)
  code
  case lower(self.CurrentTag)
  of 'date'
    self.CurrentField = deformat(pString,@d10)
! yyyy/mm/dd
    return
! this is important to avoid the call to PARENT
  end
  parent.AssignField(pString)


Loading an HTML Table into a Queue

Often data is received as HTML, in an HTML <table> structure. There are two approaches you can use to move this data into a Queue using xFiles.

Consider the following xml;

<table class="tableList tight w100">
    <tr>
        <th>First Name </th>
        <th>Inititals </th>
        <th>Last Name </th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="left">Ryan</td>
        <td class="left">&nbsp;</td>
        <td class="left">Abbott</td>
    </tr>
</table>


With StringTheory

If you have StringTheory then this is the easiest approach. It works by using StringTheory to clean up the HTML before passing it to xFiles.

xml xFileXML
str StringTheory

htmlQueue QUEUE
col1 String(255)
col2 String(255)
col3 String(255)
End

  CODE
  str.LoadFile('whatever.xml')
  str.remove('<td','>',false,true)
! removes all attributes inside the HTML
  xml.start()
  xml.TagCase = XF:CaseAny
  xml.MatchByNumber = true
        ! This is the magic line that gets the columns into columns
  xml.Load(htmlQueue,str.GetValuePtr(), str.Length(),'table','tr')


In the above .Load, all the rows <tr> are moved into the queue. This includes <th> and <td> fields.

Without StringTheory

If you don't have StringTheory, or you want to extract the <th> and <td> fields separately, then the code looks like this;

xml xFileXML
htmlQueue1 QUEUE
col1 String(255),name('th')
col2 String(255),name('th')
col3 String(255),name('th')
End

htmlQueue2 QUEUE
col1 String(255),name('td')
col2 String(255),name('td')
col3 String(255),name('td')
End

  CODE
  xml.start()
  xml.Load(htmlQueue1,'paul.xml','table','tr')
  xml.start()
  xml.Load(htmlQueue2,'paul.xml','table','tr')


Note that the htmlQueue2 will still contain rows in the queue for the <th> rows, but they will be blank. In the same way HtmlQueue1 will contain rows for each <td> row, but they will be blank as well.

xFileXML Quick Start Guide - Creating an XML File or String

Keen to get started? Or just don't like wading through all the documentation? This section is just for you - the basics on how to get xFiles working as quickly and simply as possible.

In the same way that you can load an XML file into a Clarion structure, you can also create XML files very quickly and easily.

Saving a Clarion Structure to an XML file on the Disk

xml.Save(Structure,XmlFileName,[FileBoundary],[RecordBoundary])

The last 2 parameters are optional but it's always better to include them if you know what they are. Note that if you include one you will need to include both. In the case of a Group, the FileBoundary can be a blank string. For example;
xml.Save(NamesQueue,'c:\temp\names.xml','table','item')
or
xml.Save(Settings,'.\settings.xml')

You can use a Group, Queue, View or File as the structure holding the data being saved. The method returns 0 if successful, non-zero otherwise. If not successful the errorcode will be in the .Error property, and a description of the error will be in the .ErrorStr property.

Saving a Clarion structure to an XML string in Memory

xml.Save(Structure,[FileBoundary],[RecordBoundary])

This is the same as saving the xml to a File, except that the XmlFileName parameter is not used. After the call to save, the xml data will be in the property .xmlData. The length of this string is in .XmlDataLen. For example;
xml.save('NamesQueue')
Blob[0 : xml.XmlDataLen-1] = xml.XmlData

Arrays

Given a simple Clarion array field;

Name string(20),dim(3)

There are a couple of ways this array can be rendered in XML.

The first approach, and the default approach, is to uniquely identify each tag in the XML with the array index number. So the above becomes;

<name__1>Charles</name__1>
<name__2>Henry</name__2>
<name__3>William</name__3>


This allows each entry in the array to be uniquely identified, and the position of the item in the array is also preserved.

A property, AddArrayIndexToTag, can be set to false to change this behavior. If this property is set to false then the array is rendered as;

<name>Charles</name>
<name>Henry</name>
<name>William</name>


While the items will appear in the order in which they exist in the array, blank items may be suppressed (depending on the three Blank properties) which would mean that the position in the XML no longer completely matches the position in the array.

Properties which can be set before a call to Save

There are a number of properties which you can set just before doing a save. These properties affect the way the Xml looks.
Property Effect
DontReplaceColons By default colons in the field name are replaced with a period. If you wish to suppress this behavior then set this property to 1.
DontUTF8Decode If set then incoming strings are not decoded from utf-8 to ANSI form.
DontUTF8Encode If set then outgoing strings are not encoded into utf-8 form. It is assumed that strings are already in utf-8 form (if the output encoding is set as utf-8)
DemoMode If this is not zero, then the data in the source data structure will be replaced with the DemoModeValue property when the data is written out. If the output structure is a Queue, File or View then DemoMode contains the number of rows to write.
This allows you to create sample output XML, without needing actual demo data in the structure.
DemoModeValue The value to use for all fields and attributes when DemoMode is > 0.
Meta Allows custom meta headers to be added to the xml. This property is added to the top of the xml file, before the root boundary.For example;
xml.meta = '<?mso-application progid="Excel.Sheet"?>'
OmitXMLHeader The XML header (usually <?xml version="1.0">) is not added to the top of the file.
_pFileBoundary Typically passed as a parameter of the call to .Save. This sets the boundary for the outside of the file.
<?xml version="1.0">
<file>
  <record>
  </record>
</file>
_pFileBoundaryAttribute Can be set to allow an attribute string to be included as part of the file boundary.
<?xml version="1.0">
<file albert="fat">
  <record>
   </record>
</file>
_pRecordBoundary Typically passed as a parameter of the call to .Save. This sets the boundary for each record inside the file.
<?xml version="1.0">
<file>
  <item>
   </item>
</file>
RecordBoundaryAttribute A fixed attribute string for the record boundary. This attribute will be applied to all records, and should not change between records.
<?xml version="1.0">
<file>
  <item albert="fat">
   </item>
</file>
RemovePrefix Default is 1. If set, the prefix is not used when matching fields to tags.
RootBoundary An additional XML boundary around the whole file.
<?xml version="1.0">
<root>
  <file>
    <record>
     </record>
  </file>
</root>
RootBoundaryAttribute A string of attributes for the Root Boundary.
<?xml version="1.0">
<root albert="fat">
  <file>
    <record>
     </record>
  </file>
</root>
RSSVersion If you are creating an RSS file, set this property to the RSS version you are using. For example 2.0
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<rss version="2.0">
If the RssVersion propert is set, the _pFileBoundary is automatically set to <channel>
SaveEncoding The encoding scheme to use for the XML file. Examples are 'utf-8', 'ISO-8859-1' and 'windows-1252'.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8">
See also the .UseCharSet method, which sets an appropriate charset based on a Clarion CHARSET:something equate.
SaveBlobsAsCData Default is 1. Blob fields will be encoded as [CDATA] in the XML file. This is necessary for blobs containing binary characters. (ie Non ASCII characters)
SaveMemosAsCData Default is 1. Memo fields will be encoded as [CDATA] in the XML file. This is necessary for memos containing binary characters. (ie Non ASCII characters)
SaveRecords Default is 0, meaning no limit. If set then only this many records will be copied from the source structure to the XML.  This value is checked after the call to ValidateRecord so records excluded by ValidateRecord are not included in the output, and do not count against the SaveRecords limit.
SkipRecords Default is 0, meaning no records are skipped. If set then this number of valid records will be skipped before records are copied from the source structure to the output. This value is checked after the call to ValidateRecord so records excluded by ValidateRecord are not included in the output, and do not count against the SkipRecords limit. Used with the SaveRecords property this property allows for "pages" of data to be exported.
SaveStringsAsCData Default is 0. If set all String fields will be encoded as [CDATA] in the XML file. This is necessary for strings containing binary characters. (ie Non ASCII characters). You can set this property for individual fields. (See Properties which can be set in SaveTweakFieldSettings)
StandAlone Allows you to set the StandAlone property in the xml header. Can be set to 'yes' or 'no'.
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes">
SoapBodyBoundary The name of the SOAP Body boundary. The default is soap:Body. Only used if .SOAPEnvelope property is  set to 1.
<?xml version="1.0">
<soap:Envelope>
  <soap:Body>
    <file>
     <record>
     </record>
    </file>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
SOAPEnvelope Set this to 1 to include the SOAP envelope boundary (and Soap Body boundary) around the file.
SOAPEnvelopeBoundary The name of the SOAP Envelope boundary. The default is soap:Envelope. Only used if .SOAPEnvelope property is  set to 1.
<?xml version="1.0">
<soap:Envelope>
  <soap:Body>
    <file>
     <record>
     </record>
    </file>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
SOAPEnvelopeBoundaryAttribute An attribute for the soap:Envelope boundary. The default is
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"

<?xml version="1.0">
<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <soap:Body>
    <file>
     <record>
     </record>
    </file>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
xslt If the XML has an associated XSLT file, then you can set that here. This will result in a header being added to the xml file. For example;
xml.xslt = 'somexml.xslt'
results in
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="somexml.xslt" ?>'
See also XSLT.
ZipUseZip Only valid for saving to an XML file on disk. If set, the XML file on disk will be compressed, using the ZIP compression scheme.

Properties which can be set in SaveTweakFieldSettings

These properties are an array, where the array index is the field number of each field in the Group, Queue, File or View record. Setting these properties allows you to modify behavior for individual fields in the record.
Property Effect
ColumnDisabled[x] If this is set to 1 then the field is not exported to the XML file. If the field is inside a group, then you should adjust the _sGroupLen[x] property as well.
_Dimension[x] If this field is an array, then this contains the size of the array. Note that multi-dimensional arrays are always stored as single dimensioned arrays internally. Bob,dim(5,5) is the same as Bob,dim(25).
_sFieldName[x] The name of the field (In other words the <tag> name). If you change this be sure to change the _sFieldNameLen[x] property as well.
_sFieldNameLen[x] The length of the _sFieldName[x] property.
_sFieldNameIsAttribute[x] If set to 1 then the field will be added as an attribute to the record boundary. If set to a negative number then this field will be assigned to the that field as an attribute. In other words if less than zero it contains the value of the field it is attached to, multiplied by -1.
You should not be setting this property directly, see the SetAsAttribute method for setting fields as attributes.
_sFieldNameAttribute[x] The attribute which will be added to the _FieldName tag. If you change this be sure to change the _sFieldNameAttributeLen[x] property as well. For example, if you wish to add the attribute save="yes" to the field number 3 (called, say, filename) then you'd set
_sFieldNameAttribute[3] = 'save="yes"'
_sFieldNameAttributeLen[3] = len(clip(_sFieldNameAttribute[3]))
and the result would be
<filename save="yes>
whatever
</filename>
_sFieldNameAttributeLen[x]  
SaveAsBase64[x] Force this field to be saved as Base64. (Not currently used).
SaveAsCData[x] Force this field to be encoded as [CDATA]. Useful for string fields that contain non-Ascii characters.
_sGroupLen[x] If this field is a group, this contains the number of fields inside the group. If you disable fields inside a group, you should adjust this property as well.
_Over[x] If this field is Over another field, then the parent field number is here.

Methods which can be used during a Save

These methods allow you to embed code that affects the Save as it is happening.
Method Effect
AddAtListStart,
AddAtRecordStart,
AddAtRecordEnd,
AddAtListEnd
Called as the class iterates through the View, Queue or File.
AddText Allows you to inject text into the output. Typically called from AddAtListStart, AddAtListEnd, AddAtRecordStart, AddAtRecordEnd methods.
SetAsAttribute Sets the field either as an attribute of the record, or the attribute of another field. See SetAsAttribute for more information.
SaveCurrentFieldToXML This method is called for each field as the XML string is created. The third parameter is the field name. This provides you an opportunity to alter the value in the field before it is saved to XML. See also Formatting a field before it is saved to XML .
SaveTweakFieldSettings Allows you to set field related properties before the save commences. See also Properties Which can be Set in SaveTweakFieldSettings.
SaveTweakSettings Allows you to override properties explicitly set in the Init method.
ValidateRecord This method is called for each record while looping through the Queue, File or View. You can add your own filter code to this method. Return one of
XF:OutOfRange : Terminates the loop immediately
XF:Filtered   : Cycles to the next record without saving this one to the XML file.
XF:Ok         : Record is saved to the XML.

xFiles Templates

The Global xFiles Extension Template

In order to use xFiles, you need to add the Global Extension Template.
  • Click on the Global button, and Choose "Extensions", then press the "insert" button.
  • Choose the "ActivatexFiles - Activate Capesoft's xFiles" from the 'Class xFiles - CapeSoft xFiles - Version x.xx" section.
Global Template Options
  • Remove File Prefix from field Labels - removes the file prefix from fields labels that are entered into the XML file. Note: these settings must match on import and export (if using a different instance of this control template to do the other import/export)
  • Replace colon in field name with a dot - if checked, all colons in field names are replaced with a dot in the XML tags (a colon is an invalid character in an XML tag)
  • Encoding method - allows you to select whether to use iso-8859-1, utf-8 or windows-1252. The default method is iso-8859-1, but you can force it to one of the others if you prefer.
  • Set Logging to - allows you to force debug logging on or off - otherwise you can use the compile time settings that are in the classes (normally off).
  • Customize Header and Footer - allows you to enter a customizable Header and or Footer (for things like RSS Feeds, etc).
  • Field Type Overrides - if you don't want to save MEMOs and/or BLOBs into your XML file, then you can disable this with these checkboxes.
  • CDATA Saving - you can encase your data in CDATA tags - you can select which field type you would like to do this for using these checkboxes

Generic xFiles Template (to use an xFiles object)

xFiles provides a template to make it simple to add an object to a procedure. To use the template:
  • Right click on the procedure you wish to add an object to and Choose "extensions", then press the "insert" button.
  • Choose "IncludexFilesObject - Use an xFiles object" from the 'Class xFiles - CapeSoft xFiles - Version x.xx" section.
  • In the "This Object Name" field enter "xmlWriter".
Extension screenshot The class details tab allows properties to be added to the class and methods to be added, overloaded or customised and provides access to the method and data embeds for the object.

Export to/Import from XML Control Template

You can populate this control template onto a window, and export a file/queue/group to a file from a button on the window.
 Control Buttons screenshot You can setup the following options in the control template: Control Template General
  • Local Data - the data source (typically this would be the name of the file to export - or the queue or group)
  • XML File - the file to export the data to. You can use quotes or a variable name.
  • Display Status - shows a message after exporting or importing the file.
  • ThisWindow.Reset(1) - resets the window after loading the file, forcing your browses and fields to be refreshed.
Control Template Options tab screenshot
  • Remove File Prefix from field Labels - removes the file prefix from fields labels that are entered into the XML file. Note: these settings must match on import and export (if using a different instance of this control template to do the other import/export)
  • Encoding method - allows you to select whether to use iso-8859-1, utf-8 or windows-1252. The default method is iso-8859-1, but you can force it to one of the others if you prefer.
  • Set Logging to - allows you to force debug logging on or off - otherwise you can use the compile time settings that are in the classes (normally off).
  • Customize Header and Footer - allows you to enter a customizable Header and or Footer (for things like RSS Feeds, etc).
  • Field Type Overrides - if you don't want to save MEMOs and/or BLOBs into your XML file, then you can disable this with these checkboxes.
  • CDATA Saving - you can encase your data in CDATA tags - you can select which field type you would like to do this for using these checkboxes

Some Practical Applications

Creating RSS Feed Files

  1. Create a window in your application and add the xFiles Global template (if you have not done so already) and the xFiles local extension template. You can leave the default template settings as they are.
  2. Your RSSFeedQueue should be of the following example structure:
  3. Item       QUEUE,PRE()
    Title            STRING(252)
    Description     STRING(1024)
    Link            STRING(252)
    ExtraFieldsInHere FieldTypes
                END
    Your queue must be labeled 'Item' and have the 'Title', 'Description' and 'Link' fields present. You can include additional fields for extra information as well (which will be ignored by the RSS aggregator).
  4. In the ThisWindow.Init() method, set the following properties:
    ThisXMLFile.CustomSectionAfterFileBoundary = '<title>My RSS Feed</title><13,10>'|
        &' <description>My Description</description><13,10>'|
        &' <link>www.mywebsite.com</link><13,10>'|
        &' < language>en-US</language><13,10>'|
        &' <webMaster>webmaster@mydomain.com</webMaster><13,10>'

    ! This will load the existing RSS feed into our RSS feed queue
    ThisXMLFile.RSSVersion = '2.0' ThisXMLFile.load(RSSFeedQueue,'RSSFeedfile.xml')
  5. Add the necessary RSS feed items to the queue (you'll want to add them to the front of the queue so that newest items are at the 'top of the pile'):
  6. Item.Title = 'My New Item'
    Item.Description ='My new RSS feed description'
    Item.Link = 'www.mywebsite.com\MyNewItem.htm'
    Add(Item,1)
  7. Add a button to the window (Create RSS Feed) and in the accept event save the file:
    ThisXMLFile.save(RSSFeedQueue,'RSSFeedfile.xml')
    This will create the file locally, and you'll need to upload it (which you will require an FTP process - ideally like NetTalk's SendFTP).

Storing Global Settings in an XML file

Many people are used to storing global settings in INI files, or perhaps a registry. There' s a much easier way using xFiles to store global settings. Because xFiles stores (and retrieves) a generic group structure, you can add variables without worrying about updating your store variable procedure. The only thing you need to be aware of is that variables stored (and retrieved) must be within a group structure. For example:
GlobalSettings       group, pre(GLOSET) ! This group will be stored in the XML settings file
WebSite               string(252)
EmailAddress          string(252)
                    end
FTPPostWindowThread  long              
! Not stored in the XML settings file

In our code, we simply call the save (and load) command for storing (and retrieving) the global settings we require preserved:
ThisXMLFile.save(GlobalSettings,'GlobalSettingsFile.xml')
and
ThisXMLFile.load(GlobalSettings,'GlobalSettingsFile.xml')

Creating SOAP requests

SOAP Servers are programs out on the network that you can interact with. Each program is different, but a protocol, SOAP, exists which makes it possible for different programs to communicate with each other.

SOAP packets are usually passed between programs using TCP/IP connections, and wrapped with a HTTP header. A tool like NetTalk makes this really easy to do. However inside the packet the request is formatted using XML, and thus XFiles can be very useful in this regard.

A complete description of SOAP is beyond the scope of this document, however you do not usually need to be a SOAP expert in order to make simple SOAP servers and clients.

You will find some working examples in \Clarion\3rdParty\Examples\SOAPClient. These examples use NetTalk to run, but you can convert them to use other networking tools if you wish.

A SOAP envelope is automatically wrapped around your regular XML if you set the .SOAPEnvelope property to 1.

A typical SOAP request looks like this;
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <soap:Body>
    <ChangeLengthUnit xmlns="http://www.webserviceX.NET/">
      <LengthValue>5</LengthValue>
      <FromLengthUnit>Centimeters</FromLengthUnit>
      <ToLengthUnit>Inches</ToLengthUnit>
    </ChangeLengthUnit>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

However different soap servers require different specific tags. To support this xFiles allows you to set the specific text for each part of the packet. Here is the request again, but this time the optional parts have been replaced  with the name of the property you can set.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="SaveEncoding"?>
<SOAPEnvelopeBoundary SOAPEnvelopeBoundaryAttribute>
SOAPHeader
<SOAPBodyBoundary>
  <_pFileBoundary p_FileBoundaryAttribute>
    <pRecordBoundary RecordBoundaryAttribute>
      <LengthValue>5</LengthValue>
      <FromLengthUnit>Centimeters</FromLengthUnit>
      <ToLengthUnit>Inches</ToLengthUnit>
    </_pRecordBoundary>
  </_PFileBoundary>
</SOAPBodyBoundary>
</SOAPEnvelopeBoundary>


The above properties can all be set in the .SaveTweakSettings method. Note that the _pFileBoundary tag is optional, and should be set to nothing if it is not required.

Other properties you need to set are .SOAPEnvelope(set to 1 to wrap the XML in a Soap Envelope) and .TagCase (usually you need to set this to XF:CaseAsIs - more on that in a moment.)

For example, the code to create the packet above looks like this
xml.SOAPEnvelope = 1
xml.SaveEncoding = 'utf-8'
Xml._pFileBoundary = ''
Xml._pRecordBoundary = 'ChangeLengthUnit'
Xml.RecordBoundaryAttribute = 'xmlns="http://www.webserviceX.NET/"'
Xml.TagCase = XF:CaseAsIs
xml.SOAPEnvelopeBoundaryAttribute = |
                       'xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"' & |
                       ' xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"' &|
                       ' xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"'
xml.SOAPEnvelopeBoundary = 'soap:Envelope'
xml.SOAPBodyBoundary = 'soap:Body'
xml.SOAPHeader = '<soap:Header/>'


For the actual XML in the middle, a simple group is all that is required.
RequestGroup   GROUP,PRE(Request)
LengthValue      DECIMAL(9,3),NAME('LengthValue')
FromLengthUnit   STRING(32),NAME('fromLengthUnit')
ToLengthUnit     STRING(32),NAME('toLengthUnit')
              END


(Take notice of the Name attribute, more on that in a minute.)

After setting all the values in the group to their desired state, you can then create the PostString (ready for the NetTalk side of things) using 2 simple lines of code.
xml.Save(RequestGroup)
PostString = xml.xmldata


The call to Save converts the group into XML, and stores the result in the .XmlData property. Because the .SOAPEnvelope property (and all the other properties) have been set appropriately in .SaveTweakSettings, the text that is in .XmlData is the complete SOAP request.

It is worth mentioning a slight complication alluded to earlier which needs to be taken into account. Most SOAP servers are picky, and require the tag names to be case sensitive. In other words
<LengthValue>5</LengthValue> is not the same as
<lengthvalue>5</lengthvalue> which is not the same as
<lengthValue>5</lengthValue>

The most common mistake when speaking to a SOAP server is getting these tag names not-quite-right, and hence the server returns an error. xFiles supports a variety of possible tag cases (when creating the XML) and these are set using the .TagCase property as we saw above. Possible values for .TagCase are XF:CaseLower, XF:CaseUpper, XF:CaseAny and XF:CaseAsIs. The default is XF:CaseAny, which means that xml files being loaded are Case Insensitive. For a Save this implies that the case of the External Name will be used (if it exists) and the tag is Upper Case if there is no external name.

If your SOAP server requires upper, or lower case tags, then you don't need to worry about the External Name for each field, just set the .TagCase property to the appropriate value and continue. If however the server requires a mixed case (as this example does) then you need to set the Name for each item in your group. Be very careful with the case - in this example the LengthValue tag started with a capital letter, but the fromLengthUnit tag did not.

But wait, there's more. Every so often you come across a SOAP packet that has 2 (or possibly more) parts. Something like this;
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
               xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
               xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <soap:Header>
    <AuthHeader xmlns="urn:schemas-cardinal-com:2006:04:alaris:gateway:alarisgateway">
      <ClientIdentifier>guid</ClientIdentifier>
    </AuthHeader>
  </soap:Header>
  <soap:Body>
    <QueryPatientId xmlns="urn:schemas-cardinal-com:2006:04:alaris:gateway:alarisgateway">
      <deviceId>string</deviceId>
    </QueryPatientId>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>


Now this SOAP Packet contains 2 parts, a Header part and a Footer part. Which effectively means the SOAP packet contains 2 structures (in this case 2 groups). The key to understanding how to create this packet rests on two items;
a) See this primarily as a Multi-Part xml file, not as a SOAP packet
b) follow the directions below "Storing Multiple Things in the same XML file"
Aside: A small number of servers require an empty header in order to process the packet correctly. The SOAPHeader property has been included so that you can inject specific text (for example <soapenv:Header/>) between the SOAP Envelope and the SOAP Body. This property is not formatted in any way, if you use it you will need to ensure it is valid xml.

For completeness sake, here is the code that creates the above packet. However you will need to read the section below before this code will make sense.
Structures
AuthHeader         GROUP,PRE()
ClientIdentifier     STRING(255),NAME('ClientIdentifier')
                   END
QueryPatientId     GROUP,PRE()
deviceId             STRING(255),NAME('deviceId')
                   END

Code
xml.SaveEncoding = 'utf-8'
xml.TagCase = XF:CaseAsIs
xml.RootBoundary = 'soap:Envelope'
xml.RootBoundaryAttribute = |
               'xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"' &|
               ' xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"' &|
               ' xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"'
xml.DontCloseTags = 1
Xml.RecordBoundaryAttribute = 'xmlns="urn:schemas-cardinal-com:2006:04:alaris:gateway:alarisgateway"'
xml.save(AuthHeader,'soap:Header','AuthHeader')

xml.append = 1
xml.DontCloseTags = 0
xml.Save(QueryPatientId,'soap:Body','QueryPatientId' )


As you can see the above commands are Saving the structures to a string, not a file, and as will all strings the result is in xml.xmldata.

Using a View to create a filtered, sorted, XML file

Exporting a whole data table, including all records and all fields to an xml file is easy. Simply use the .Save method. For example
xFileXML.Save(Customers,'customers.xml')

If however you only want to export a subset of the fields, or records, or if you want to specify the sort order for the export, then the above command is too limited. In this case what you need to do is export the xml using a VIEW as the data source, rather than a file.

The Dict example, which you'll find in the  \clarion\3rdparty\examples\xfiles\dict folder has an example of creating a view, and then using it to create the xml file. For example
xml      xFileXml
ThisView View(Wages)
            Project(wag:Employee)
         End
  code
  xml.Save(ThisView,'employees.xml')

The important thing to remember about views is that you get to decide which fields are included, and which are excluded. In addition you decide what the FILTER and ORDER properties for the view are.

Last, but not least, it's useful to remember that all Browses and Reports in your application are based on Views. Thus it is possible to export the contents of a Browse, or Report, to XML but using this xFiles function, and making use of the views constructed for you by these templates.

Formatting a field before it is saved to XML

Data in the database is often stored in a "raw" format. Sometimes this data needs to be formatted before it can be saved. For example, dates in a Clarion file are typically stored as a number (days since December 28, 1800), whereas in xml it would be ideal to have this formatted into a human-readable date format.

The correct place to embed code to format the string is in the .SaveCurrentFieldToXML method. There are two instances of this method, so you should use the one which has p_name as one of the parameters. Inside this method add some code to test the field name, and call the .FormatCurrentField method with the picture. For example, in the demo application, the following lines are used;

xmlFile.SaveCurrentFieldToXML PROCEDURE (Long p_x,Long p_DimCounter,String p_name)
  CODE
  if p_name = 'WAG.SALARY'
    self.FormatCurrentField('@p$<<<<<<<<#.##p')
  end
  ! Parent Call
  PARENT.SaveCurrentFieldToXML (p_x,p_DimCounter,p_name)

The .FormatCurrentField method takes a standard Clarion picture as a parameter. In some cases you will want to format the output string completely differently to what is available via a standard clarion picture. This is also possible, but requires slightly more code;

text string(20) ! declared earlier in the procedure

xmlFile.SaveCurrentFieldToXML PROCEDURE (Long p_x,Long p_DimCounter,String p_name)
CODE
  if p_name = 'WAG.SALARY'
    text = 'CASH:' & format(self.currentField,@p<<<<#.##p)
    self.currentfield &= text
  end
  ! Parent Call
  PARENT.SaveCurrentFieldToXML (p_x,p_DimCounter,p_name)


First create a variable to hold the result (in this case called TEXT). Then set text, and importantly assign self.CurrentField to point to Text.

Tip: The p_name parameter is the tag name in the xml, not the field name in the table.

Changing the Name of a Field in Outgoing XML

When exporting XML from a structure the External Name of each field is used as the <Tag> name in the XML. For example

xQueue   Queue
field1           string(255),Name('Total')
                   End


results in XML like this;

<Total>whatever</Total>

Ideally the external Name attribute of the field contains the correct value for the tag.
There are times however when you need to override this, and this is done by embedding code into the ExtractNames method, AFTER the PARENT call.

Example;

xml.ExtractNames PROCEDURE ()
  CODE
  PARENT.ExtractNames ()
  self._sFieldName[1] = 'Totalizer'
  self._sFieldNameLen[1] = len(clip(self._sFieldName[1]))


Note that it's very important to set both the text of the field name, but also the length property for the fieldname.

Note also that the field number is critical here - the [1] in brackets specifies the field number which is being set.

Including a Binary file in outgoing XML

If you want to include a file (like say a PDF or Image file) in an XML structure you are creating then the process is fairly straightforward.

Files are not usually included as pure binary, because the null character ( chr(0) ) is not allowed in XML. Therefore the file has to be encoded first, and the most common encoding is Base64.

You will need a procedure to load the file and Base64 encode this. The following example uses StringTheory, but any code will do.
In your outgoing structure add a field which will identify the file in the XML. For example;

whatever    Group,pre(wht)
name          string(20)
image         string(1)
            End

The type of the field isn't important (but is usually a String) and the length can be just 1. As with the earlier section the SaveCurrentFieldToXML method is used to inject the Base64 encoded string into the XML.

str     StringTheory ! declared earlier in the procedure

xmlFile.SaveCurrentFieldToXML PROCEDURE (Long p_x,Long p_DimCounter,String p_name)
  CODE
  if p_name = 'WHT.IMAGE'
    str.LoadFile('somefile.pdf')
    str.Base64Encode()
    self.currentfield &= str.GetValuePtr()
  end
  ! Parent Call
  PARENT.SaveCurrentFieldToXML (p_x,p_DimCounter,p_name)


In this case str is a StringTheory object, which does the work of loading the file and Base64 encoding it, but you can replace this bit with other functions if you have them.

Handling Structures with Pointers

This section deals with pointers during a Save. For dealing with pointers during a load see Loading into a structure with a Pointer.

Queue and Group structures can contain "Pointers". These are special variables that point to another variable of some type.
For example, in this structure, the Image field is a pointer to a string;

whatever    Group,pre(wht)
name          string(20)
image         &string
            End


(If you have a pointer to a queue, then read the next section as well.)

If you do a normal SAVE on this group, then the pointer-value (ie a number) will be saved (as binary) into the xml file, for the image field, and not the string that image is pointing to. This is clearly not useful. To tell xFiles that you want to save the contents-pointed-to, and not the value of the actual variable itself, you again turn to the SaveCurrentFieldToXML method.

xmlFile.SaveCurrentFieldToXML PROCEDURE (Long p_x,Long p_DimCounter,String p_name)
CODE
If lower(p_name) = 'wht:image'
  self.currentfield &= wht:image
End


Tip: The p_name parameter is the tag name in the xml, not the field name in the table.

Storing a Queue Inside a Group

A good example of this can be found in the \examples\xfiles\Q in Group\QinG.app.
Note that this technique is not available in versions of Clarion prior to Clarion 6.

Consider the following desired xml;

<invoice>
    <data>
        <customer>Fred</customer>
        <date>9 September 1970</date>
        <lineitem>
            <product>Bed</product>
        </lineitem>
        <lineitem>
            <product>Chair</product>
        </lineitem>
    </data>
</invoice>


In this case the file boundary is Invoice, and the record boundary is Data. However inside the data section are some group fields (customer, date) and a repeated queue (lineitem).

The Clarion structures to create this look something like this;

InvoiceGroup GROUP,PRE()
Customer         LONG
Date             LONG
LineItemsQ       &QUEUE
Total            LONG
             END

LineItems     QUEUE,PRE()
Product         LONG
Price           LONG
              END


Note that in Clarion the Queue is declared outside the group, and a pointer to the queue is contained inside the group.

One thing to note is that InvoiceGroup.LineItemsQ is set to LineItems.

InvoiceGroup.Customer = 'Fred'
InvoiceGroup.LineItemsQ &= LineItems
(and so on)


Saving the InvoiceGroup structure is fairly straight-forward. It begins as normal with a Save command;

xml.save(InvoiceGroup,'test.xml','invoice','data')

As we saw in the previous section, the method for handling a pointer occurs in the SaveCurrentFieldToXML method. However in the earlier section the pointer was to a string, which is a simple type. In this case the pointer is to a queue, which is a complex type. So in this case the approach is to use a second xFileXML object, and take the results of that object and place it in the parent at this point. Consider the following code;

xml.SaveCurrentFieldToXML PROCEDURE (Long p_x,Long p_DimCounter,String p_name)
    CODE
    if lower(p_name) = 'lineitemsq'
        xmlQ._indent = self._indent        
! maintain the indentation that exists
        xmlQ.OmitXMLHeader = 1      
      ! want this xml to be very plain, without the <?xml version> header
        xmlQ.save(InvoiceGroup.LineItemsQ,'','lineitem')
! save the queue to xml [1]

        self._NoEncodeDecode = 1   
        ! add the current field to the data without any further encoding.
        self._sFieldNameLen[p_x] = 0
       ! suppress the field name (lineitemsq)       
        self.currentfield &= xmlQ.xmldata 
! set the text to add to xml, to be the result of xmlQ
    end
    PARENT.SaveCurrentFieldToXML (p_x,p_DimCounter,p_name)
! This is the generated PARENT call.
    if lower(p_name) = 'lineitemsq'        ! add this bit after the parent call to reset NoEncodeDecode
        xml._NoEncodeDecode = 0
    end


In the above, the first thing to notice is the use of a second xmlFile object called xmlQ. Read the code carefully to see where xmlQ is used, as distinct from xml. Note also that this is in the SaveCurrentFieldToXML method of the xml object, not the xmlQ object.

[1] note the use of the file and record boundaries here. By leaving the file boundary blank there is no tag around all the line items in the result. In some cases you would want a tag, and so adding in a file boundary here would be desirable.

Storing multiple things in the same XML file.

Up to now all the examples have shown a single entity (Group, Queue, File or View) being stored in an XML file. However it is possible to store multiple entities in the same file or string.
In order to place multiple entities in the same xml file the following basic steps occur;
  1. Get the class ready, by setting the Root-Node (the wrapper around the whole thing) and telling the class not to automatically close the root node.
    xml.start()
    xml.RootBoundary = 'whatever'
    xml.DontCloseTags = 1
  2. Save the first entity as normal
    xml.Save(ReportFormat ,Loc:XmlName,'Document','Record')   !(For saving to a file)
    xml.Save(ReportFormat ,'Document','Record')  
    !(For saving to a string)
  3. Set the append flag so the following items are appended
    xml.append = 1
  4. Add as many entities to the file as you like, using the normal techniques. Although the boundaries do not have to be unique you may chose to make them unique so they can be loaded separately later on.
    xml.Save(rrDefnFieldsLocalView,Loc:XmlName,'DefnFieldsLocal','Record')
    xml.Save(rrDefnFieldsGlobalView,Loc:XmlName,'DefnFieldsGlobal','Record')

  5. Finally before sending the final entity, tell the object to close the root tag.
    xml.DontCloseTags = 0
    xml.Save(rrDefnBandControlsView,Loc:XmlName,'DefnBandControls','Record')
    xml.append = 0

NOTE: This approach cannot be used if a zipped xml file is being made using the built-in zipping classes.

Saving Fields as Attributes

Simple XML can be thought of as <tag>data</tag>. Despite multiple fields, and increasing levels of fields-within-fields, it follows that relatively simple pattern.

XML however does have another trick up its sleeve. These are called Attributes. The syntax looks something like this;
<tag attributeName="value" anotherAttributeName="value">data</tag>

xFiles reads these attributes in as data, interpreting the attribute names into field names. From a reading-xml point of view, xFiles (and hence your program) doesn't care if the incoming data was an attribute, or inside a tag. For more information you can read basic introduction to attributes here.

Creating XML with attributes is slightly more complex than just creating basic XML. There is no "setting" which can be applied to a native Clarion data structure which makes it an attribute, so an extra method call (which you need to add) is required to make it so.

The following Clarion structure
Animals    Queue,pre()
Type         String(20)
Species      String(20)
           End


needs to be saved as xml, with Type as an attribute, like in this example;

<animals>
  <species type="mammal">Elephant</species>
  <species type="reptile">Cobra</species>
</animals>


To do this we need to use a xFileXML object, but with some code embedded into the .SaveTweakFieldSettings method.

The Save call would look like this;

xml.Save(animals,'c:\temp\whatever.xml','animals','')

and the other code goes into the SaveTweakFieldSettings, like this;

xmlFile.SaveTweakFieldSettings PROCEDURE ()
  CODE
  self.SetAsAttribute('type','species')
! this is the output tag name, not the field name
  ! Parent Call
  PARENT.SaveTweakFieldSettings ()


The first parameter is the field to set as an attribute. The second determines which field it is an attribute of. If this second parameter is omitted the the attribute is assigned to the record identifier. (In our example above there is no record identifier, so that would be meaningless in this case.)

Getting the names of the attributes correct is probably the hardest part, because they needs to match the output exactly. In other words it is case sensitive, and should include a prefix if the output tag has a prefix. The easiest approach is to create the XML file with all normal tags, then use that as a reference to get the specific tag name.

Oh that all XML was that simple, but of course it's not. XML allows for the same tag name to be used multiple times in the same xml file, but in different places in the structure. Consider the following XML;

<animals>
  <species type="mammal">Elephant</species>
  <environment type="land">Grasslands</environment>
  <species type="fish">Shark</species>
  <environment type="sea">Shallow</environment>
</animals>


This would translate to a Clarion structure like this;

Animals    Queue,pre()
Type         String(20),name('type')
Species      String(20)
Type2        string(20),name('type')
Environment  string(20)
           End


In this case because the two tags have the same name there needs to be another parameter to determine which tag you have in mind.

self.SetAsAttribute('type','species',1) ! set the first instance of type to be an attribute
self.SetAsAttribute('type','environment',2)
! set the second instance of type to be an attribute

In the above example the third parameter is distinguishing between the first instance, and the second instance of TYPE in the record.

Note that MEMOs and BLOBS cannot be set as attributes.

An alternative is to use the field number in place of the name, but this approach can lead to bugs if the field order in the original structure changes.

Adding Custom Text into the XML file

An AddText method exists, which allows you to directly inject text into the XML stream as the XML is being created. The method takes a single parameter, which is the text to add.

The text will be added as-is, with no formatting, xml-encoding, unicode translating or anything of that nature. So the text you are adding should be appropriate for the position to be sure that everything is encoded as it should be.

There are four methods which are particularly useful for adding text.
AddAtListStart, AddAtListEnd, AddAtRecordStart and AddAtRecordEnd.

For example in the AddAtListStart method;

self.AddText('<date>' & format(today(),@d10) & '</date><time>' & format(clock(),@t4) & '</time>')

xCell Class

Introduction

Spreadsheet programs have the ability to load and save spreadsheets in a specific XML format. The xCell class in xFiles can create an XML file of this structure, which in turn can be opened by Microsoft Office, Apache Open Office, or Libre Office.

To create a document you:
  1. Declare an object
  2. Create a worksheet
  3. (Optionally) Create Styles
  4. (Optionally) Apply Styles to Columns
  5. (Optionally) Apply Styles to Rows
  6. Add Data into Cells
  7. Save the XML to a file.
The XML file needs to contain a number of different parts of information which in turn are collated together to make the final XML file.
There are a number of methods that can be used to create and delete worksheets, manage styles, and set cell contents. Unlike the xFilesXML class  this class does not just simply take a specific structure and turn it into XML. You will need to write the various loops you require yourself.

Declare an Object

The first step is to create an appropriate object. In this example the object will be called ExcelExport:

ExcelExport xCell

Reuse

An object can be reused multiple times. To restore the object to its initial state use the Start method. For Example;

ExcelExport.Start()

Encoding

Encoding is a little complicated. Basically you need to match the encoding of your data with the encoding in the XML output. There are two properties which come into play;
ExcelExport.SaveEncoding . This defaults to ISO-8859-1. If you are using characters not in the ISO-8859-1 set then you probably will want to set this to utf-8.

If the encoding is set to utf-8, then the data may need to be converted to utf-8. This is done by default (using a property DontUTF8Encode which defaults to false) however if your data is already in utf-8 form then this needs to be true.

These two properties best help you move the data from it's existing form into the XML. Here is the matrix;

Your Data Is Set SaveEncoding to SetDontUtfEncode to
Already Utf-8 'utf-8' true
Plain ASCII leave as default leave as default
Uses Extended characters, not part of ASCII 'utf-8' false
Unusually, these properties need to be set BEFORE the call to the Start method. They are not reset by the Start method.

For example;

ExcelExport.SaveEncoding = 'utf-8'
ExcelExport.DontUtf8Encode = true
ExcelExport.Start()

WorkSheets

You need to create a worksheet onto which the data will go. You can have as many worksheets as you like, but they should be added in the order (from left to right) that you want them to appear in the document.

ExcelExport.SetWorkSheet('Some Sheet Name')

The length of the name is limited to 31 characters. If the name is longer then that then a warning will be generated when Excel opens the spreadsheet, and the name will be truncated. The RenameWorkSheet method can be used if you wish to rename the worksheet after it has been created.

ExcelExport.RenameWorkSheet('Some Old Name','Some New Name')

When you are ready to work with a specific sheet you specify it using the WithWorkSheet method. The same name that was used when the sheet was created is now used to identify the sheet. If a sheet of that name is not found, then one will be created with that name.

ExcelExport.WithWorkSheet('Some Sheet Name')

There is also a method to select the sheet by number

ExcelExport.WithWorkSheetNumber(1)

Bear in mind that if worksheets are deleted then the WorkSheet number of a specific sheet can change. Worksheets are numbered with sequential positive integers, so if worksheet 2 of 3 is deleted, then worksheet 3 becomes worksheet 2. If a worksheet with that number does not exist then the method returns a non-zero number. If the worksheet is found then the method returns 0.

Worksheets can be deleted using the DeleteWorkSheet method. This method takes a name, as set by SetWorkSheet. If the worksheet is not found then nothing is deleted. Regardless of success or failure the first worksheet will be selected for subsequent calls, so an immediate call to WithWorkSheet is usually desired. When a worksheet is deleted then all the row and column data associated with the worksheet is deleted. Styles are not associated with one sheet, so deleting a sheet does not clear any of the styles.

ExcelExport.DeleteWorkSheet('Some Sheet Name')

You can also delete all worksheets in a single call by calling

ExcelExport.FreeWorkSheets()

Printing

You can control the desired (maximum) with and height of the report output for the work sheet using the SetSheetPrintFit method. This takes the width and height (in pages) of the (maximum) printed output you desire. (If the spreadsheet will fit on fewer pages anyway, then it will just be on fewer pages.)

ExcelExport.SetSheetPrintFit(2,2)

If you wish to set the width and height separately then you can use SetSheetPrintFitWidth and SetSheetPrintFitHeight. these take one parameter, being the width and height respectively.

The orientation of the page can be set using the SetPageOrientation method. This takes a single parameter, a string  starting with 'L' (or '1') for landscape or a string starting with 'P' for portrait mode. If the parameter is anything else then the mode is set to Portrait. The equates xf:Landscape and xf:Portrait can also be used here.

ExcelExport.SetPageOrientation(xf:Landscape)

You can also set headers and footers for the printed output. The SetSheetHeader method takes 4 parameters; 3 strings and a real.
The strings represent text that can be left, center, and right justified in the header. The fourth (optional) parameter sets the margin (in inches) between the edge of the page and the header text.

Each string can contain a number of Tokens, which will be filled in by Excel at runtime.
Token Description
&P Page Number
&N Number of Pages
&D Date
&T Time
&Z File Path
&F File Name

For example

ExcelExport.SetSheetHeader('&D &T','Customer Report','&P / &N',0.5)

This puts 3 strings on the top of each page, a half inch from the top of the paper.

An alternate form of the SetSheetHeader method exists, which takes an optional single string and an optional margin parameter. You can use three additional tokens in this string;

Token Description
&L Justify following text to the Left
&C Justify Following text in the Center
&R Justify Following Text to the Right

For example

ExcelExport.SetSheetHeader('&L&D &T')
ExcelExport.SetSheetHeader(,0.4)


The SetSheetHeaderMargin method allows you to set the margin field without affecting the text.

ExcelExport.SetSheetHeaderMargin(0.5)

SetSheetFooter methods exist, which are named and behave exactly as their SetSheetHeader counterparts.

The header and footer margins only apply to the header and footer respectively. These are independent of the page margins. The data cells only use the page margins when determining their position. Therefore if margins are not set correctly, it is possible for the cell data to overprint the header and footer data.

You can set the page margins using the method SetSheetPageMargin. This takes four (optional) REAL parameters, top, bottom left and right. As before the value for these fields are in inches. for example

ExcelExport.SetSheetPageMargin(1,1,1,1)

Styles

Styles can be created,  properties for the style can then be set as desired and styles can be applied to cells.

To create a style use the SetStyle method. This takes three settings, the style ID, the style name and optionally the parent. For example;

ExcelExport.SetStyle('id','name')

If the first parameter is omitted then the next sequential style ID is used. The ID is returned by the method. The style name is also omittable.

Once a style has been created you can assign many different properties to it using one of the following methods:

ExcelExport.SetStyleAlignment('id','vertical','horizontal','rotate','wraptext')

Vertical must be one of: Top, Center, Bottom, Justify, Distributed

Horizontal must be one of: Left, Center, Right, Distributed

Rotate must be a number from -90 to 90.

Wraptext must be either 0 (no) or 1 (yes).

ExcelExport.SetStyleInterior ('id','color','pattern')

Pattern is one of the following values;
Solid, Gray75, Gray50, Gray25, Gray125, Gray0625, HorzStripe, VertStripe, ReverseDiagStripe,DiagStripe, DiagCross, ThickDiagCross, ThinHorzStripe, ThinVertStripe, ThinReverseDiagStripe, ThinDiagStripe, ThinHorzCross, ThinDiagCross


ExcelExport.SetStyleFont('id','fontname','family','size','color',bold,italic,'underline')

The color is done in web format (#112233). However if the color is passed as a LONG (ie a Clarion color, without the leading #) then it will automatically be converted into a web color for you.
Underline should be one of '', 'single' or 'double'. A 1 for single underline, or 2 for double underline are also supported.

ExcelExport.SetStyleNumberFormat('id','format')

The number format matches the format string as you would set it in Excel itself. Utility methods do exist to convert Clarion date and time pictures into their matching Excel format (see below).

ExcelExport.SetStyleBorder('id','position','lineStyle','weight','color')

The color is done in web format (#112233). However if the color is passed as a LONG (ie a Clarion color, without the leading #) then it will automatically be converted into a web color for you.

To delete a single style you can call

ExcelExport.DeleteStyle('id')

To clear the current style settings you can call

ExcelExport.FreeStyles()

Utility methods

Utility methods exist for converting from common Clarion data types to Excel Data types..

ExcelExport.AddDatePicture('picture') and ExcelExport.AddTimePicture('picture') automatically create styles, and set the number format, for a specific Clarion date or time picture. The name of the style created is dnnn for dates and tnnn for times where nnn is the clarion picture number. For example;

ExcelExport.AddDatePicture('@D6')

would create a style called d6 which matches the date format of dd/mm/yyyy


Columns

You can set properties for an entire column using the SetColumn method.

ExcelExport.SetColumn(index,'styleId','AutoFitWidth','width')

The index is the column number (where column A = 1, B=2  and so on.)
If you set a styleId here, you must also be sure to create that style using the SetStyle method.
AutoFitWidth is optional. It should be set to 0 or 1. If 1 then only numeric and date columns are auto-fit, Text columns are not auto-fit by Excel.
Width is optional, set this to the specific column width you want.

You can remove the settings for one column using

ExcelExport.DeleteColumn(index)

or all columns using

ExcelExport.FreeColumns()

Rows

As with columns you can set properties for a whole row.

ExcelExport.SetRow(index,'StyleID','AutoFitHeight','height')

You can remove the settings for one row using

ExcelExport.DeleteRow(index)

or all rows using

ExcelExport.FreeRows()

Cells

Obviously the point of the class is ultimately to get data into cells. This is done using the SetCell method.

ExcelExport.SetCell(rowIndex,columnIndex,'data','styleID','formula','type','mergeacross','mergedown')

The row and column indexes indicate the cell which is being written to. Both are incremental integers starting from 1.

All the fields after columnIndex are optional, and multiple calls can be made to set the various properties for the same cell. In other words you might call SetCell twice for the same cell, once to set the data and a second time to set the style.

The data field is the value you want to appear in the cell.

The StyleID matches the id of some style you have set.

The Formula field contains any Excel formula (as you would expect to see it in the spreadsheet.)

The Type field can be either 'Number' or 'String'. If omitted then the class looks at the data field to determine if the cell should be a number or string.

The MergeAcross and MergeDown fields allow you to set the extent of this cell in the worksheet.
If you do merge a cell across multiple cells on the worksheet, then be careful not to call SetCell for those other cells. If you do so the spreadsheet may not load into Excel etc.

You can remove a cell using

ExcelExport.DeleteCell(rowIndex, columnIndex)

You can remove all cells for a specific row using

ExcelExport.FreeCells (rowIndex)

Date and Time Fields

Setting a cell to contain a date, or time, is a two-fold step.

Add Styles

Firstly you create one or more styles with the date and/or time pictures you want to use, as described in the Utility Methods section above.

ExcelExport.AddDatePicture('@D6')
ExcelExport.AddTimePicture('@T1')


For more complex formats (Excel supports more formats than Clarion) and also formats that combine date and time in a single cell you will need to use the SetStyleNumberFormat call when adding a style. For example;

ExcelExport.SetStyle('dt1')
ExcelExport.SetStyleNumberFormat('dt1','[$-409]m/d/yy\ h:mm\ AM/PM;@')

The format used in the SetStyleNumberFormat call can be quite complex. The best way to figure out the style you want is to make a spreadsheet with a cell of the correct style, export that to XML and inspect the XML.
The data is simply the date and time values in the same string, separated by a T symbol.


SetCell - Harder Method

Secondly, when adding a cell set the type to DateTime.

ExcelExport.SetCell(row,column,'2017-12-31','d6',,'DateTime')
ExcelExport.SetCell(row,column,'1899-12-31T' & '2:05' ,'t1',,'DateTime')


As you can see from the above, the data in the SetCell call (the 3rd parameter) should be formatted as @0D10-B for dates and @T1 or @T4 for times. If you are setting just a time, then prefix the time with the generic date, as in the example above.

If desired you can store a Date and Time value together in a single column. As above this consists of setting a style for the cell, and then adding data into the cell.

ExcelExport.SetCell(row,column,'2017-12-31T2:05' ,'dt1',,'DateTime')

Set Cell - Easier Method

This is an alternative to the "secondly" part. You still need to add styles as per the above.

To make all this a bit easier there are 3 specialized SetCell methods that can be used;
SetCellDate, SetCellTime and SetCellDateTime.

these methods follow the same prototype as SetCell, but drop the Type parameter. The Date and Time parameters are Clarion LONG's, so no formatting of the data is needed.

ExcelExport.SetCellDate (rowIndex,columnIndex,date,'styleID','formula','mergeacross','mergedown')
ExcelExport.SetCellTime (rowIndex,columnIndex,time,'styleID','formula','mergeacross','mergedown')

ExcelExport.SetCellDateTime (rowIndex,columnIndex,date,time,'styleID','formula','mergeacross','mergedown')

For example;

ExcelExport.SetCellDate(row,column,someDate,'d6')
ExcelExport.SetCellTime(row,column,someTime,'t1')

ExcelExport.SetCellDateTime(row,column,somedate,sometime ,'dt1')



Formulas

Formulas can be added using the syntax

ExcelExport.SetCell(rowindex, columnindex, , styleid, 'someformula')

Remember rowindex and columnindex are integers, not letters.

The important thing to get right though is the text which makes up 'someformula'. This is not just the same as the text you see on the screen in the Excel Cell, Excel stores it slightly differently.

When constructing a formula you don't use the cell naming scheme as you would in the spread sheet itself. As an example, say you had the formula in the spreadsheet in cell E7, which was represented in the spreadsheet as
=$E$1+$E$2
In the XML file this is represented using RyCx syntax. For example the same formula is written as
R1C5+R2C5
(Read this as row1, column 5 plus row 2 column 5). The $ signs in the original formula mean these cells are "fixed".

A more common way of doing formulas in a spreadsheet is by using relative positions. So if cell F7 was set to =E1+E2 then it's understood that the seventh row is a sum of the first two rows of the previous column. The cell F7 is relative to cells E1 and E2. This is written like this;

R[-6]C[-1]+R[-5]C[-1]

If it was a sum in the same column, then [0] is not included so it becomes

R[-6]C+R[-5]C

Here's another example, this time a horizontal sum across 4 cells, placing the answer in the fifth cell

=SUM(RC[-4]:RC[-1])

Hint: Probably the easiest way to know what the syntax of the formula should be is to create it in a spreadsheet, then Save the spreadsheet as an XML file, then inspect the XML file.

Saving

Up to this point the spreadsheet has been created in memory. Once the spreadsheet is completed it can be saved to the disk using the Save method.

ExcelExport.Save('filename')

If you wish to save it to a string, and not to a file on the disk, then you can do

ExcelExport.Save()

At this point the xml is in the xmlData property of the object.

Example

Putting all the above together, this creates a simple spreadsheet containing two columns of numbers, with a total at the bottom of each column.

ExcelExport.Start()
ExcelExport.SetWorkSheet('Example')
ExcelExport.WithWorkSheetNumber(1)

ExcelExport.SetStyle('xf','xFiles')
ExcelExport.SetStyleFont('xf','Segoe UI',' ',12,Color:Navy)

ExcelExport.SetStyle('tl','Total')
ExcelExport.SetStyleInterior('tl',Color:Maroon)
ExcelExport.SetStyleFont('tl','Segoe UI',' ',12,Color:White)

ExcelExport.SetRow(3,'tl') ! Set Total row to Total Style

ExcelExport.SetCell( 1,1,123,'xf')
ExcelExport.SetCell( 1,2,456,'xf')
ExcelExport.SetCell( 1,3,789,'xf')
ExcelExport.SetCell( 2,1,987)
ExcelExport.SetCell( 2,2,654)
ExcelExport.SetCell( 2,3,321)

ExcelExport.SetCell( 3,1, , , '=SUM(R[-2]C:R[-1]C)')
ExcelExport.SetCell( 3,2, , , '=SUM(R[-2]C:R[-1]C)')
ExcelExport.SetCell( 3,3, , , '=SUM(R[-2]C:R[-1]C)')

ExcelExport.Save('c:\temp\a.xml')


Examples

The examples are an excellent place to get started. The JumpStart example is a quick and easy way to see how to use xFiles with the minimum of code or effort. The xFiles Demo example is also an good place to see a few of the basic uses of xFiles, it uses the xFileXML and xFileBinary classes and demonstrates a few of the basic of using xFiles classes.
Example Location & Comments
Jumpstart Clarion\3rdparty\Examples\xFiles\JumpStart
The result of following the JumpStart section. The most basic example of how to use xFiles. The app file is xfJump.app.
See JumpStart for more details.
Demo Clarion\3rdparty\Examples\xFiles\Demo
A basic example of using xFiles, this example exports a browse (either as a Queue, or as a View) to an XML file. It also demonstrates the usage of the xFileBinary class to load the XML file into a string so that it can be displayed.
Demo FE Clarion\3rdparty\Examples\xFiles\Demo FE
This is a modified version of the Basic example. It uses File Explorer to display the XML instead of loading the string into a text control. This allows the XML to be displayed with color syntax highlighting and interactivity. The example is identical except for the ViewXML window which doesn't use the xFileBinary class, it just displays the XML file using File Explorer. See www.capesoft.com/accessories/fileexplorersp.htm for more information on CapeSoft File Explorer. This example is for Clarion 5.5 and above (File Explorer does not support Clarion 5).
Demo Full Clarion\3rdparty\Examples\xFiles\Demo Full
A fuller example application, which also demonstrates creating the XML from a queue in memory (using a string) as well as writing to a file and loading the XML file into the browse queue. This example will grow significantly in future releases to demonstrate the full functionality of xFiles.
Dict Clarion\3rdparty\Examples\xFiles\Dict
An example of source procedures in an app that export a file to xml, and a view to xml.
Simple Project Clarion\3rdparty\Examples\xFiles\Simple Project
A very simple project and CLW file. Includes the xFiles.inc files and uses a xFileBinary object to write data to disk.
Convert Clarion\3rdparty\Examples\xFiles\SOAPClient\Convert
A simple SOAP example that connects to a SOAP server out on the web.

Importing Advanced Structures

The goal of this section is to document the techniques used to import structures that, while legal, are in some way obtuse. Various cunning techniques are covered here, although you may not need to use any of them in normal XML importing operations.

Importing the whole xml data record into a field in the destination structure

There are cases when you want to parse the incoming xml into fields as normal, but you also want to store the original xml for the whole record in a field. Indeed this may be the only field in your incoming structure. To do this set the .StoreWholeRecord property to 1, and make a field in your receiving structure with the same name as the Record Boundary. Note that if the xml you are importing contains a Field with this name as well, then you cannot make use of this option, or the whole xml will overwrite the incoming field value.

Importing from XML where there are multiple fields with the same name

It is legal in XML to have multiple fields (or attributes) which are siblings of each other, with the same name. For example;
<product>
  <name>Car</name>
  <price type="purchase">22000</price>
  <price type="lease">2000</price>
</product>


This can be imported by using a well-crafted strcture, as well as making use of the Name attribute. The structure for the above would be;
Product   Group
name        String(20)
type1       String(20),name('type')
price1      Long,name('price')
type2       String(20),name('type')
price2      Long,name('price')
          End


Note that in the above structure the external names are duplicated. This is legal.
Notice also that the order of the fields is critical. Without the ability to match exclusively on the name, xFiles will take the order of the fields into account.
Lastly notice that the attribute comes before the field. so the Type comes before the Price.

Classes

This lists the Classes provided by xFiles at this time, along with a description of the functionality provided by each class.
Class Description
xFileBinary Binary file handling - high speed reading and writing of all file types (binary and text) with minimal coding (simply call a single method to load the file into memory using a string or save a file from memory to disk.)
xFileExplode Handling decompression of files compressed using the PKWare implode/explode algorithm. Does not support compression.
xFileFastTimer High speed, accurate timers.
xFileLinkDLL Easy support for run time linking of DLLs and locating procedures in the DLLs when loaded.
xFileSettings An easy to use replacement for GetINI and PutINI - writes to XML files instead of INI files.
xFileXML Write any queue, group, view or file to an XML file and read XML files directly into a queue, file or group. Click Here to see the QuickStart guide.
xFileZip Handles compression and decompression using a ZIP algorithm.
xFileBase Internal base class, does not contain accessible functionality
xFileBaseCompress Internal base class for compression


xFileXML Methods
The XFileXML class provides the ability to easily load XML files from disk into a group, file or queue, and save a group, file, view or queue to disk as an XML file. Writing a data structure to disk can be done by calling a single Save method. Similarly, reading an XML file into a group, file or queue is as simple as calling the Load method.
AddRecord Add a record to the object loaded by xFileXML (queues and files only).
AddText AddText into the XML being created. Allows custom text to be injected into the output stream at specific points...
Copy Copy data to or from the data structure being used by xFileXML. Allows the contents of a queue to be copied into a File being used, or data from a different queue or group to be copied into the queue or group used by the xFileXML object.
Init Initialize an xFileXML object to use a particular queue and data structure.
Load Load from file to the data structure.
Save Save to the XML file (or create the XML in memory).
Start Return the object to its initial state.
Advanced Class Methods
Generic File Loading and Saving
SaveBinData Saves the binData string property to the file name specified.
LoadBinData Loads a file into the binData string property.
XML file modification and settings
CreateFooter Creates a string that is appended after the file data.
CreateHeader Creates the XML header that is added to the file.
DisableField Allows you to remove a field from a Table, View, Queue or Group before saving.
LoadTweakSettings Called when the Load is about to be done to allow the object setting to be modified before the load code is executed.
SaveTweakSettings Called when the Save is about to be done to allow the object setting to be modified before the save code is executed.
SetAsAttribute Sets a field to be an attribute, either of the record, or of another field.
UseCharSet Sets the .Saveencoding based on a Clarion Charset Equate.
Record handling and management
AddAtListStart
AddAtRecordStart
AddAtRecordEnd
AddAtListEnd
Called when generating lists. Acts as a point for calling AddText.
GetValue Gets a value of a field when passed the field name (Files only).
SetValue Sets the value of a field when passed the name and value (Files only).
InsertFileRecord Inserts a record in the file (File only).
UpdateFileRecord Updates a record in the file (File only).
RecordCount Returns the number of records in the file or queue.
FreeFileData Deletes all records in the file.
FreeGroupData Clears the group.
FreeQueueData Deletes all queue records.
ValidateRecord Used when reading into a Queue, or File, or writing from a Queue, File, or View. This method allows you to suppress records by returning the value
ValidateUpdateRecord Used when reading into a Queue, or File.
This method is called when doing a LOAD directly into a Table or Queue. Where ValidateRecord validates the incoming values, ValidateUpdateRecord validates the existing-record values. So, for example, if a database record is locked, and may not be updated, then this method allows you to override the update, and not write the new values to disk.
Return XF:Filtered from the method to override the update.
This method is only called for updates, not for inserts. Filtering for inserts remains in either ValidateRecord, or InsertFileRecord.
AddOldField If one of the fields in your Group, Flie, Queue or View has changed, and exported XML files exist that are still using the old field names, you can use this to tell XFiles to import the the value into the renamed field.
LoadAllOldFields This is called when Load is called. Embed your calls to AddOldField() here, after the parent call.
CleanFileName Called when a file is saved to ensure there are no invalid characters in the file name.

xFileXML Properties

Property Description See Also
AddArrayIndexToTag
(Long)
If set to true (the default) then XML tags for array values will be extended to include the array index. See Arrays for more. Arrays
AddFields
(Long)
The number of fields to add when inserting a record into the queue by calling the AddRecord method. AddRecord method
BinData
(&String)
The actual internal data store for loaded files. Memory allocation and disposal is handled by the class. When an XML file is loaded the data is loaded into this buffer and the size of the loaded data is stored in the BinDataLen property. Generally this property does not need to be manipulated directly unless the LoadBinData and SaveBinData methods are being used to write this directly to disk (which allows generic file reading and writing as well as customization of the data being read and written). LoadBinData method
SaveBinData method
BinDataLen property
BinDataLen
(Long)
The size of the BinData property (in bytes). This is set automatically when an XML file is loaded from disk. BinData Property
ColumnDisabled
(Byte, dim(XF:MaxFields))
This is an array map of the columns that allows a column to be enabled(0) or disabled(1). All columns are enabled by default, but you can disable individual columns by setting the byte in the map for that particular column. E.g. (to disable column 4):

ThisFileXML.ColumnDisabled[4] = 1

CopyFields
(Long)
The number of fields to copy between the two data structures when calling the Copy method. Allows the number of fields being used to be limited. Copy method
CRLF
(cString(10))
A string containing the line-ending to place after each tab. This makes the xml more readable, but at the cost of some extra characters in the xml file.  Defaults to <13,10>.  
DontAbbreviateEmptyTags
(Long)
By default empty tags are saved as the compact form - for example <abc/>. If however the unabbreviated form needs to be saved then set this property to true. When true tags will be saved in the form <abc></abc>.
Note that this setting applies after the DontSaveBlank settings above. In other words if the Blank property is true then this property has no effect.
 
DontAddLastFields
(Long)
Performs the same function as DontCopyLastFields, except for the AddRecord method - it limits the number of fields that are added when inserting a record into the queue. AddRecord method
DontCopyLastFields method
DontCleanFileName
(Long)
If set to 1 the CleanFileName method will not remove invalid characters from the file name, but simply return it as-in. This should not be used in normal circumstances.
DontCopyLastFields
(Long)
The same as the DontLoadLastFields property, except for copying from one queue to another using the Copy method. Copy method
DontLoadLastFields
(Long)
Performs the same function as the LoadFields property, however it allows the number of fields to be excluded to be specified from the last field in the queue, rather than specifying the number of fields to be included from the first field in the queue. LoadFields property
DontReplaceColons
(Long)
By default xFiles replaces colons(:) with periods (.) when writing prefixes to the file. Colons are not valid in the XML tags except for namespaces. Set the DontReplaceColons property to true to not replace colons in the XML file with full stops and zero to leave them as colons. This does not effect the operation of xFiles, however setting DontReplaceColons to true will result in invalid XML that is not viewable in XML viewers and parsers.
DontSaveBlanks
DontSaveBlankStrings
DontSaveBlankNumbers
DontSaveBlankGroups
(Long)
By default all fields in the structure are added into the XML as it is created. However XML also allows for the possibility of omitting blank fields from the output. These properties allow you control over what fields (if any) are excluded. The first property (DontSaveBlanks) is the equivalent of all the others being set.  
IgnoreGroupTags
(Long)
Saving: If this property is set then Groupings of fields in your Clarion structure is ignored. The structure is saved as if the structure contains no groups.

Loading: If this property is set, then xml fields are imported by name, regardless of their grouping (or lack of grouping) in the xml. In other words the import will pay no attention to grouping in the xml, or grouping in the Clarion structure. If the xml however does contain groups, and inside those groups are duplicated field names, then the import will be unable to distinguish the fields.

IndentBy The number of spaces (default = 2) to indent rows by to make the xml more readable. Set to 0 to minimize the size of the xml. Set to 0 to suppress indenting. The default value is 2.  
LoadFields
(Long)
This allows the number of fields to be loaded to be different from the number of fields in the queue, for example the first 5 fields might contain data, and the second 5 might be for temporary data, or the result calculations that aren't stored in the XML file. Setting LoadFields to 5 will load the first 5 fields of the queue from the XML file, even if there are ten fields in the queue or file.  Load method
SaveFields property
DontLoadLastFields property
LoadFromString
(Long)
When this property is set the Load() method loads the XML data in the xmlData string instead of loading it from disk. This property does not need to be set manually any longer as the Load() method now directly supports passing a string containing the XML to loading into the passed data structure. See Also
Load, Save, saveToString
Meta Allows custom meta headers to be added to the xml. This property is added to the top of the xml file, before the root boundary. For example;
xml.meta = '<?mso-application progid="Excel.Sheet"?>'
 
OmitXMLHeader
(Long)
Omits the first tag in the XML file. See CreateHeader and CreateFooter for more information on the header and footer tags. LoadFields property
_pFileBoundary
(pString(252))
This is the root boundary of the xml. The xml specification specifies that the xml document needs a boundary at the beginning and end of the xml.
_pFileBoundaryAttribute
String(XF:MaxAttributesSize)
Added to the file boundary tag when writing an XML file.  
_pRecordBoundary
(pString(252))
This is the boundary between each record in the queue/table/view of file being loaded. This allows the tag used as the record boundary to be specified.
ProgressControl If this property is set to the Use Equate of a progress control on the window, then the progress control will be updated during the Load or Save call. The progress bar is automatically unhidden on start, and hidden when the Load or Save is completed.
for example;
xml.ProgressControl = ?ProgressWhatever
xml.Load(....
 
Records The number of records added to the XML in the last save.  
RecordBoundaryAttribute Added to the record boundary tag when writing an XML file.  
RecordNumber
(Long)
As each record is written to the output duing a .SAVE, the RecordNumber is increased. This allows you to know the current record number (in the output) as the data is being written.
SaveFields Specify the number of fields to save.  
SaveRecords Default is 0, meaning no limit. If set then only this many records will be copied from the source structure to the XML.  This value is checked after the call to ValidateRecord so records excluded by ValidateRecord are not included in the output, and do not count against the SaveRecords limit.  
SkipRecords Default is 0, meaning no records are skipped. If set then this number of valid records will be skipped before records are copied from the source structure to the output. This value is checked after the call to ValidateRecord so records excluded by ValidateRecord are not included in the output, and do not count against the SkipRecords limit. Used with the SaveRecords property this property allows for "pages" of data to be exported.  
SaveToString
(Long)
When this property is set the Save() method saves the XML data in the xmlData string instead of writing it to disk. The Save() method can be passed a blank file name if this is set, as the file name parameter is not used. See Also
Save, loadFromString
SOAPEnvelope
(Long)
When this property is set the Save() method wraps a SOAP envelope around the XML data. See Also
Creating SOAP requests
SOAPEnvelopeBoundary, SOAPEnvelopeBoundaryAttribute, SOAPBodyBoundary
SOAPEnvelopeBoundary
(pString(252))
This property determines the text for the Soap Envelope tag, to be used if the XML is wrapped as a SOAP request. The default is <soap:Envelope>. Be aware that some SOAP servers may treat this tag in a case sensitive manner. See Also
Creating SOAP requests
SOAPEnvelope, SOAPEnvelopeBoundaryAttribute, SOAPBodyBoundary
SOAPEnvelopeBoundaryAttribute
(cString(XF:MaxAttributesSize))
This property lets you set the attribute (if any is required) of the Soap Envelope Boundary tag. See Also
Creating SOAP requests
SOAPEnvelope, SOAPEnvelopeBoundary, SOAPBodyBoundary
SOAPBodyBoundary
(pString(252))
This property determines the text for the Soap Body tag, to be used if the XML is wrapped as a SOAP request. The default is <soap:Body>. Be aware that some SOAP servers may treat this tag in a case sensitive manner. See Also
Creating SOAP requests
SOAPEnvelope, SOAPEnvelopeBoundary, SOAPEnvelopeBoundaryAttribute
StoreWholeRecord
(Long)
If this property is set to true, and a field in the structure exists, with the same name (or external name) as the record boundary, then the xml for the whole record will be stored "as is" in this field.
TagCase
(Long)
The field name tags are automatically detected for you by the xFiles class. In some XML situations the case of these tags may be important. This property gives you control over the case used. This property  defaults to XF:CaseAny. Other options are XF:CaseLower, XF:CaseUpper and XF:CaseAsIs. In order to have mixed case tags, the Name property for each field in the group/file/queue must be set. This property is only applied to field-level tags, not header or boundary tags.

The default is XF:CaseAny, which means that xml files being loaded are Case Insensitive. For a Save this implies that the case of the External Name will be used (if it exists) and the tag is Upper Case if there is no external name.
See Also
Creating SOAP requests
UpdateAsWhole If an incoming record updates an existing record, then assume the incoming record overwrites _all_ the fields of the existing record. Note this mode is not supported if the file has memo or blob fields.  
UpdateFileOnLoad If you don't want records to be updated when importing, then CLEAR this property (set by default).  
XmlData
(&String)
A string that is populated with the XML by the Save() method, if saveToString is set to 1. This allows XML to be "saved" into memory rather than written to disk directly. See Also
Properties: loadFromString, saveToString
Methods: Load, Save
XmlDataLen
(Long)
The length (in bytes) of the xmlData string property. The xmlData property is used for loading and saving XML to and from memory rather than from disk. See Also
Properties: loadFromString, saveToString
Methods: Load, Save
Xslt
(string(XF:TempHeaderStringSize))
The name of an XSLT Style sheet which will be referenced in the xml header.  

xFileLinkDLL Methods
The xFilesLinkDLL class provides runtime DLL loading. This allows you to load a DLL when your program is running and access functions provided by that DLL. The DLL itself is not linked into your application at compile to using a LIB file. This is useful when your application depends on an external DLL, or there is functionality that is only provided when a particular DLL is available, or for functions that are specific to certain version of Windows etc./td>
Construct Constructor that is called when the object is created.
Destruct DDestructor that is called when the object is destroyed.
LinkDLLFunction Loads a function from a DLL. If the DLL is not already loaded it loads the library.
Init Initialization method, does not perform any functionality and is provided for overriding the default behavior.
xFileLinkDLL Properties
dontDisplayMessages Replaces colons with full stops when writing prefixes to the file (on by default)
_DLLModules Specify the number of fields to load

xFileXML Class Methods

AddRecord

AddRecord (<any p_F1>,<any p_F2>,<any p_F3>, ...)

Description

Adds a record to the xFilesXML record queue. The method takes up to 20 ANY parameters, which allows the addition of records to a queue where the type of a field is not known.

Parameters

Parameter Description
any p_F1 Up to 20 optional parameters of the ANY type can be passed. Each parameter populates a field in the record that is to be added to the queue.

See Also:

Load, Save

AddText

AddText(String p_text)

Description

Add text into the outgoing XML stream when doing a Save.

Parameters

Parameter Description
p_text The text to add into the XML. This text is added in "as is". All encoding etc needs to be done on the text before inserting it in with this method.

See Also:

AddAtListStart, AddAtRecordStart, AddAtRecordEnd, AddAtListEnd

CCopy

Copy (*Group p_Group, byte p_Direction=0)
Copy (*Queue p_Queue, byte p_Direction=0)

Description

Copies the records from the internal xFileXML group/queue property to the passed group/queue, or from the passed group/queue to the xFiles group/queue. The direction parameter specifies whether the data is copied from the parameter to the xFilesXML property or from the property to the passed variable.

Parameters

Parameter Description
*Group p_Group or
*Queue p_Queue
The queue or group to copy to or from (depending on the value of the direction parameter).
byte p_Direction If p_Direction is 0 then the data is copied from the xFilesXML object to the passed group/queue.
If p_Direction is 1 then records are copied from the passed queue or group to the xFilesXML object.

See Also:

Load, Save

Init

Init (*Queue p_Queue, string p_FileName)
Init (*Group p_Group, string p_FileName)
Init (*File p_File, string p_FileName)
Init (*View p_View, string p_FileName)

Description

Initialises the xFileXML object to the a particular data structure and file, you can call this method at any point to change the data structure that is read from and written to, and the XML file that is used. If you are setting any of the class properties such as LoadFields and SaveFields then Init must be called after setting the class properties in order to use them.

Note: As well as passing a Queue, you can also pass a Group, File or View to the Init method to have xFiles read and write using a group, file, view or queue. (Views are Write-Only, not Read).

Note: You don't need to call Init unless you set advanced class properties like xFileXML.loadFields, xFileXML.saveFields and xFileXML.copyFields. If you set these properties to change which fields are saved then you need to use the first method above and call Init(). Otherwise you can call the Load and Save methods and pass them the queue/group/file/view and file name without calling Init().

Parameters

Parameter Description
*Queue p_Queue or
*Group p_Group or
*File p_file or
*View p_view
The label of the structure that the data is read from or written to.
string p_FileName The name of file to read from and write to.
Examples
Example
myQueue           queue
from                  string(80)
to                    string(80)
                  end
xmlFileName       string(260)
 CODE
 xmlFileName = 'myXmlFile.xml'
 thisFileXML.Init(myQueue, xmlFileName)

See Also:

Load, Save

Load

Load (*Queue p_Queue, string p_fileName, <string p_FileBoundary>,<string p_RecordBoundary>)
Load (*Group p_Group, string p_fileName, <string p_FileBoundary>,<string p_RecordBoundary>)
Load (*File p_File, string p_fileName, <string p_FileBoundary>,<string p_RecordBoundary>)
Load (*Queue p_Group, *String p_XMLString, Long p_XMLStringLength, <string p_FileBoundary>,<string p_RecordBoundary>)
Load (*Group p_Group, *String p_XMLString, Long p_XMLStringLength, <string p_FileBoundary>,<string p_RecordBoundary>)
Load (*File p_File, *String p_XMLString, Long p_XMLStringLength, <string p_FileBoundary>,<string p_RecordBoundary>)
Load ()

Description

Loads an XML file into the data structure. The first parameter is the Clarion data structure that will receive the parsed XML. Valid structures are a Queue, File or Group.

The second parameter is the name of the file on disk, or the name of the string which is holding the XML in memory. If the XML is in a string, then an additional parameter, the length of the string, is required at this point.

Following this are 2 optional parameters that allow you to specify the File Boundary, and Record Boundary tags.

The .Load method (no parameters) ultimately loads the XML into the specified structure. It is included here for completeness but it should not usually be called directly.

Parameters

Parameter Description
*Queue p_Queue or
*Group p_Group or
*File p_File
The queue, file or group that the xml data will be loaded into.
string p_FileName The name of file to read from.
*String p_XMLString The string variable containing the whole, valid, XML data.
Long p_XMLStringLength The length of the XML string.
<string p_FileBoundary> TThe file boundary tag in the XML file. Optional. Default is file, view, queue or group. If the p_FileBoundary parameter is set then the p_RecordBoundary parameter must be set as well.
<string p_RecordBoundary> The Record boundary tag in the XML file. Optional. Default is item (for File or Queue) or data (for Group). If the p_RecordBoundary parameter is set then the p_FileBoundary parameter must be set as well.
Examples
Example - Calling Load by passing the data structure and file name.
xml               xFileXml
myQueue           queue
from                  string(80)
to                    string(80)
                  end

xmlFileName       string(260)

  CODE
  xmlFileName = 'myXmlFile.xml'
  xml.start()
  xml.SetTagCase(sf:caseLower)
  xml.Load(myQueue, xmlFileName,'table','record')

See Also:

Save, Init, Load

Save

Save (*Queue p_Queue, string p_fileName, <string p_FileBoundary>,<string p_RecordBoundary>)
Save (*File p_File, string p_fileName, <string p_FileBoundary>,<string p_RecordBoundary>, <key pKey>)
Save (*File p_File, string p_fileName, <key pKey>)

Save (*View p_View, string p_fileName, <string p_FileBoundary>,<string p_RecordBoundary>)
Save (*Group p_Group, string p_fileName, <string p_FileBoundary>,<string p_RecordBoundary>)
Save (*Queue p_Queue, <string p_FileBoundary>,<string p_RecordBoundary>)
Save (*File p_File, <string p_FileBoundary>,<string p_RecordBoundary>, <key pKey>)
Save (*File p_File, <key pKey>)

Save (*View p_View, <string p_FileBoundary>,<string p_RecordBoundary>)
Save (*Group p_Group, <string p_FileBoundary>,<string p_RecordBoundary>)
Save ()

Description

Saves a Clarion data structure into an XML file, or string.

The first parameter is the Clarion data structure that holds the data to be exported. Valid structures are a Queue, File, View or Group.

The second parameter is the name of the file on disk. If the XML is to be stored in a string, in memory, then this parameter is ignored.

Following this are 2 optional parameters that allow you to specify the File Boundary, and Record Boundary tags.

The .Save method (no parameters) ultimately saves the XML into the file or string. It is included here for completeness but it should not usually be called directly.

Parameters:

Parameter Description
*Queue p_Queue or
*Group p_Group or
*File p_File or
*View p_View
The label of the queue, file, view or group that contains the data to be saved to the XML file or string.
string p_FileName The name of the XML file to store the data in. If this file does not exist it will be created. If this parameter is omitted completely then the XML will be written into a string. This string is accessible after the call to .Save in the object's XmlData property. The length of the string is in the XmlDataLen property.
<string p_FileBoundary> The file boundary tag in the XML file. Optional. Default is file, view, queue or group. If the p_FileBoundary parameter is set then the p_RecordBoundary parameter must be set as well.
<string p_RecordBoundary> The Record boundary tag in the XML file. Optional. Default is item (for File or Queue) or data (for Group). If the p_RecordBoundary parameter is set then the p_FileBoundary parameter must be set as well.
<key pKey> Allows you to specify the order (by selecting a key) when saving a table to xml. If the key is omitted, and a primary key exists, then the primary key is used./td>
Examples
Example  - Calling Save by passing the data structure and file name
xml     xFileXml
myQueue queue
from      string(80)
to        string(80)
        end 
xmlFileName string(260)
  CODE
  xmlFileName = 'myXmlFile.xml'
  xml.start()
  xml.Save(myQueue, xmlFileName)


See Also:

Load(), Init()

Start

Start ()

Description

Returns the object to its initial state ready for reuse.

xFileXML Advanced Methods

Generic File Loading and Saving

SaveBinData

SaveBinData (<string fileName>)

Description

Saves the current contents of the binData property to disk using the either the file name passed using the fileName parameter, or the file name set when the Init() method of the object was called. This method along with the LoadBinData() provides generic reading and writing of files to and from memory. This method does not parse the string in any way and will not load the data into a queue, group or file. Use the Load() method to load XML files into data structures. This method essentially exposes the generic file handling provided by the parent xFileBinary class, which provides file handling (reading and writing) along with on the fly compress/decompression etc..

When used in conjunction with the.saveToString property this can be used to customise the XML produced before writing it to disk by calling SaveBinData.

Note: To create a ZIP compressed file containing the data in the  .binData string, set the ZipUseZip property to 1 before calling the SaveBinData. This same technique can be use to ZIP compress and decompress XML files on-the-fly using the Load() and Save() methods.

Parameters

Parameter Description
string fileName An optional parameter that specifies the name of the file to save. This must be passed if the Init() method has not been called to set the file name.

Return Values

If the call fails it returns zero and the .Error and .ErrorStr properties the class are set with the error details. You can add code to display these errors if you need to.

Examples

Example - Saving data from the binData string to disk
code  if not xFileXml.binData &= null
     Dispose(xFileXml.binData)
  end
  xFileXml.binData &= new string(myXmlSize) 
  xFileXml.binDataLen = myXmlSize
  ! Add data to the string, such as custom XML 
  xFileXml.binData = Clip(string1) & Clip(string2)
  xFileXml.SaveBinData('myfileName.xml'
)

See Also

LoadBinData, Save, Load, binData, binDataLen, saveToString, loadFromString

LoadBinData

LoadBinData (<string fileName>)

Loads a string directly into the binData property of the class with doing any parsing or handling of the contents of the file. When this method is called the .binData property of the class is receives the contents of the file (memory allocation and disposable is handled by the class). In addition the .binDataLen property of the class is set to the size of the file loaded (in bytes).The .binData property is a string.

This method along with SaveBinData() expose generic file reading and writing using the xFileXML class. This can be useful when used with the .saveToString and .loadFromString properties. The data can be loaded and manipulated manually before the Load() and Save() methods are called to load (or save) the data to and from memory.

Note: To load a ZIP compressed file, set the _ZipUseZip property to 1 before calling the LoadBinData() method. This same technique can be use to ZIP compress and decompress XML files on-the-fly using the Load() and Save() methods.

Parameters

Parameter DDescription
string fileName An optional parameter that specifies the name of the file to load. This must be passed if the Init() method has not been called to set the file name.

Return Values

If the call fails it returns zero and the .Error and .ErrorStr properties the class are set with the error details. You can add code to display these errors if you need to.

Examples

Example  1 - Load data from the to disk to the xFileXML.binData string
code  xFileXml. LoadBinData('myfileName.xml')
  ! the .binData now contains the contents of the file
See Also

SaveBinData, Save,Load, binData, binDataLen, saveToString, loadFromString

XML file modification and settings

CreateHeader

CreateHeader ()

Sets the header for the XML file and adds it to the BinData property. This is called before data is added to the XML file. The string created is a standard XML header such as:
'<?xml version="1.0"?><13,10>'

Note: If the saveEncoding property is set then this string includes the encoding for the file. The binData property is set to the string created by this method and a carriage return, linefeed pair is added to the end of the header string (ASCII 13, 10) as indicated in the code snippet above. The binDataLen property is set to the length of the binData string property (the number of bytes in the header).

Parameters

None

Return Values

None

See Also

CreateFooter

CreateFooter

CreateFooter()

Creates the footer for the XML file. This is simply the closing tag for the file, such as the file boundary (see the ._pFileBoundary property). In general this method does not need to be overridden unless a custom header has been created or additional wrapper tags have been added.

Note: The footer is appended to the .binData string and the .binDataLen property incremented by the number of bytes added.

Parameters

None

Return Values

None

See Also

CreateHeader

DisableField

DisableField(structure, Name)

Allows you to disable (ie exclude) a field from a structure prior to calling the Save method.

Note: The DisableColumn property is set by this call. Clearing the property before subsequent calls to Save is recommended.

Parameters

Parameter Description
Structure The name of a Table, View, Queue or Group
Name The name of the field inside the group that should be omitted when doing a Save

Return Values

None

See Also

CreateHeader

LoadTweakSettings

LoadTweakSettings()

A purely virtual method that allows the programmer to override the settings before the Load() method actually loads and parses the XML file. Use this for setting the file or record boundaries or other settings that need to be customised to load a specific file.

Parameters

None

Return Values

None

See Also

SaveTweakSettings()

SaveTweakFieldSettings

SaveTweakFieldSettings()
A purely virtual method that allows the programmer to override the settings before the Save() method actually creates the XML file. Use this for setting the file or record boundaries or other settings that need to be customized before the XML is created and saved to disk or memory.

Parameters

None

 Return Values

None

See Also

LoadTweakSettings, SaveTweakSettings

SetAsAttribute

SetAsAttribute(String p_Fieldname,<String p_OfName>,Long p_instance=1)

Allows the programmer to set a field as being the attribute of the record, or of another field. Called from inside SaveTweakFieldSettings.

Parameters

Parameter DDescription
FieldName The tagname of the field to be set as an attribute.
OfName [optional] The name of the tag which this attribute is attached to. If omitted then the attribute is attached to the record identifier.
Instance [optional] Tag names can be duplicated in xml output. So if there are multiple tags with the same name, then use this parameter to differentiate between them.
OfInstance [optional] The instance number of the OfName to attach the attribute to. (Because it is also possible to have duplicate names at the tag level as well as the attribute level.)
Return Values

None

See Also

Saving Fields As Attributes
 

UseCharset

UseCharset(Long p_CharSet)

Sets the .SaveEncoding property based on a Clarion charset equate.

Parameters

Parameter DDescription
long p_Charset A standard Clarion Charset equate

Return Values

None

Record handling and management

GetValue

GetValue (string p_Field, long p_dim = 0) Retrieves the value of a field when passed the name of the field. For multi dimensional fields (Clarion 6 only) the second parameter allows the dimension to be retrieved to be specified. Note that the Init()() method must have been called to specify the data structure that the xFilesXML object is manipulating before this method is called.

Note: This method is thread safe and wraps access to queues in a critical section. All the methods in xFiles are built to ensure thread safe access to data (including global, unthreaded data)

Parameters

Parameter DDescription
string p_Field A string that contains the name of the field to be fetched.
long p_dim An optional parameter that specifies which dimension to fetch for multi dimensioned fields. Supported in Clarion 6 only
Return Values

The value of the field is returned as an ANY variable. If the field is not found an empty string is returned.

See Also

SetValue()

SetValue

( string p_Field, string p_Value, long p_dim = 0)

Sets the values of a specified field. Works for queues, groups and files. Note that the Init method must have been called to specify the data structure that the xFilesXML object is manipulating before this method is called.

Note: This method is thread safe and wraps access to queues in a critical section. All the methods in xFiles are built to ensure thread safe access to data (including global, unthreaded data).

Parameters

Parameter Description
string p_Field A string that contains the name of the field to be to be set.
string p_Value A string that contains the value to set the field to
long p_dim An optional parameter that specifies which dimension to set for multi dimensioned fields. Supported in Clarion 6 only
Return Values

Returns zero for success and -1 if the field is note found.

See Also

GetValue

InsertFileRecord

InsertFileRecord ()

This method adds the contents of the current file buffer as a new record in the file that is associated with xFiles. This method is not generally used directly.

Note: The Load(), Save() or Init() method must be called before this method is used in order for the xFilesXML object to be associated with a particular data structure.

Note: This method only supports files and does not update any relationships.

Parameters

None

Return Values

None

See Also

UpdateFileRecord

UpdateFileRecord

UpdateFileRecord ()

This method updates the current file record with the contents of the current file buffer. This method is not generally used directly.

Note: The Load(), Save() or Init() method must be called before this method is used in order for the xFilesXML object to be associated with a particular data structure.

Note: This method only supports files and does not update any relationships.

Parameters

None

Return Values

None

See Also

InsertFileRecord()

RecordCount

xFileXML.RecordCount ()

Returns the number of records in the File or Queue that is associated with the xFiles object.

Note: The Load(), Save() or Init() method must be called before this method is used in order for the xFilesXML object to be associated with a particular data structure.

Parameters

None

Return Values

The number of records in the Queue or File that is currently associated with the xFilesXML object.

FreeFileData

xFileXML.FreeFileData ()

Deletes all records in the File associated with this object. All records are removed, however no relationships are updated. This method is not generally called directly. This method only applies if the xFilesXML object is being used with a File.

Note: The Load(), Save() or Init() method must be called before this method is used in order for the xFilesXML object to be associated with a particular data structure.

Parameters

None

Return Values

The number of records in the Queue or File that is currently associated with the xFilesXML object.

FreeGroupData

FreeGroupData ()

Clears all fields in the group that is associated with the xFileXML object. This method only applies if the xFilesXML object is being used with a Group.

Note: The Load(), Save() or Init() method must be called before this method is used in order for the xFilesXML object to be associated with a particular data structure.

Parameters

None

Return Values

None

FreeQueueData

FreeQueueData ()

Deletes all records in the Queue associated with this object. This method only applies if the xFilesXML object is being used with a Queue.

Note: The Load(), Save() or Init() method must be called before this method is used in order for the xFilesXML object to be associated with a particular data structure.

Parameters

None

Return Values

None

AddOldField

AddOldField  (string p_OldFieldName, string p_InFilePos), long

If one of the fields in your Group, Flie, Queue or View has changed, and exported XML files exist that are still using the old field names, you can use this to tell XFiles to import the the value into the renamed field. You should embed your calls to this method in the LoadAllOldFields procedure, after the parent call, as this gets call when Load is called.

Parameters

Parameter Description
string p_OldFieldName A string that contains the odl name of the field
string p_InFilePos The position in the file record at which this field resides.

A typical call to this procedure would look something like this:

MyXML.AddOldField('OldFieldName', where(OldFieldFile.Record, OlfFieldFile.OldFieldName))


Return Values

Returns 0 if adding this old fieldname was successful. Will only fail if there is no more space for extra fieldnames. The maximum is XF:MaxFields.

See Also

LoadAllOldFields()

LoadAllOldFields

LoadAllOldFields ()

This is called when Load is called. Embed your calls to AddOldField() here, after the parent call. Be sure to embed after the parent call as the parent call clears all the old fieldnames (used for the previous load).

Parameters

None

Return Values

None

See Also

AddOldField

CleanFileName

CleanFileName (string p_Filename, long p_flag=0)

This is called when Load is called to ensure that the file name has no invalid characters. ASCII control characters with values below 21 are replaced by spaces and characters that are illegal in Windows file names (* / \ ? < > :) are removed. Use this method to remove all non-legal characters from a string so that it can be used in a file name. Note that this method removes backslashes ( \ ) so it should be used on just the file name, but NOT the path.

To use it on a Path set the flag to XF:ALLOWBACKSLASH this flag also implicitly allows a : in character 2 (for example 'c:\temp.xml'). Illegal characters are replaced with a space.

To disable this behavior set the xFileXML.dontCleanFileName property to true.

Parameters

Parameter Description
p_FileName The name of the file to be saved, excludes the path to the file (unless the p_flag parameter is set to XF:ALLOWBACKSLASH to allow backslashes and handle paths). For example 'settings.xml'.
p_flag This is a flag to override the default behavior and allow back slashes. If this contains XF:ALLOWBACKSLASH then backslashes are allowed. Use this to allow paths to be checked.

Return Values

Returns the valid file name, after illegal characters have been removed.

xFileLinkDLL Methods - Runtime DLL Loading

LinkDLLFunction (string p_DLLName, string p_FunctionName, *long p_fpFunction)

This method loads a function from a DLL when passed the name of the DLL and the name of the function to locate. If the DLL has not already been loaded it loads the DLL. The address of the function is located and stored in the passed p_fpFunction parameter .

Parameters

Parameter Description
string p_DLLName A string containing the name of the DLL that contains the function to load. If this library has not already been loaded then the method will load it before locating the required function address.
string p_FunctionName The name of the function to locate in the library.
*long p_fpFunction A long that will receive the address of the function in the library.

Return Values

Returns zero for success, or an error code if it fails.

Examples

See the "Runtime DLL Loading QuickStart Guide" for a full example and how to declare and use the addresses returned.

Example  1 - Load a function called 'unzOpen' from a DLL called 'zip.dll'/th>
code  ret = xLinkDLL.LinkDLLFunction ('zip.dll', 'unzOpen', fp_unzOpen)

See Also

DontDisplayMessages

xFileLinkDLLProperty Reference

These are some of the properties of the xFileLinkDLL class that you might find useful to set directly.

dontDisplayMessages long This option ensures that an error message is not displayed if a DLL fails to load or a function cannot be located. Set this option to 1 to not displayed error messages. You can use the .Error and .ErrorStr properties the class are set with the error details to display these errors if you need to.

FAQ

Check out general product CompilerErrors.

xFileXML
  1. I declare the object and call Load/Save but nothing happens.

    xFiles provides two ways to handle loading and saving of XML files:
    1. Without needing the Init method, you can call Load and Save and pass the data structure and file name directly to the load and save methods:

      xFileXML.Load(p_Queue, fileName)
      xFileXML.Save(p_Queue, fileName)

    2. By calling Init to set the data structure to use and the file name, then calling Load and Save:

      xFileXML.Init(p_Queue, fileName)            ! Call Init to set which data structure and file to use
      xFileXML.Load()
      xFileXML.Save()
    You don't need to use the second method and call Init unless you set advanced class properties like xFileXML.LoadFields, xFileXML.SaveFields and xFileXML._CopyFields. If you set these properties to change which fields are saved then you need to use the first method above and call Init.
  2. Is there any way to change the tag itself when writing out an XML file from a browse?
    I see that I can format or change the contents but not the tag itself.


    Yes, there is a way. In the SaveCurrentFieldToXML method you can change the outgoing name of the field. To do this you do something like this;
    In this method
    xFileXML.SaveCurrentFieldToXML PROCEDURE (Long p_x,Long p_DimCounter,String p_name)
    [aside – make sure it's this one, there are two with the name SaveCurrentFieldToXML ]

    case p_name
    of 'REQUESTEDACTION'
    self._sFieldName[x] = 'REQUESTTYPE'

    end

    This goes before the parent call.

    If you were using this embed to format the contents of the field as well, then do this before that code, and in that code check self._sFieldName[x] instead of p_name because otherwise the first time the p_name will be wrong.

Support

Your questions, comments and suggestions are welcome. See our web page (www.capesoft.com) for new versions. You can also contact us in one of the following ways:
CapeSoft Support
Email
Telephone +27 87 828 0123

Installation

To download the latest installation please visit the CapeSoft Downloads page.
To install extract the Installation Program from the SAF file using the free CapeSoft Safe Reader (download for free from https://www.capesoft.com/utilities/Safe/safereader.htm). Run the Installation Program for your version of Clarion.

Distribution

xFiles ships as source so it is compiled into the application and there are no additional files needed for distribution. There are no runtime royalties for using xFiles. Also see the License & Copyright section for more information.

License & Copyright

This template is copyright © 2003-2022 by CapeSoft Software. None of the included files may be distributed. Your programs which use xFiles can be distributed without any xFiles royalties.

Each developer needs his own license to use xFiles. (Need to buy more licenses?)

This product is provided as-is. Use it entirely at your own risk. Use of this product implies your acceptance of this, along with the recognition of the copyright stated above. In no way will CapeSoft Software, their employees or affiliates be liable in any way for any damages or business losses you may incur as a direct or indirect result of using this product

Version History

Download latest version here

Version 3.28 - 10 November 2022 Version 3.27 - 3 October 2022 Version 3.26 - 8 August 2022 Version 3.25 - 17 August 2021 Version 3.24 - 24 May 2021 Version 3.23 (29 April 2021) Version 3.22 (22 April 2021) Version 3.21 (26 November 2020) Version 3.20 (16 September 2020) Version 3.19 (2 September 2020) Version 3.18 (18 August 2020) Version 3.17 (23 March 2020) Version 3.16 (13 January 2020) Version 3.15 (9 January 2020) Version 3.14 (4 December 2019) Version 3.13 (21 August 2019) Version 3.12 (12 July 2019) Version 3.11 (18 February 2019) Version 3.10 (5 December 2018) Version 3.08 / 3.09 (13 September 2018 ) Version 3.07 (11 August 2018 ) Version 3.06 (7 August 2018 ) Version 3.05 (26 July 2018 ) Version 3.04 (26 July 2018 ) Version 3.03 (4 July 2018 ) Version 3.02 (19 June 2018 ) Version 3.01 (10 April 2018 ) Version 3.00 (6 March 2018 ) Version 2.99 (8 February 2018 ) Version 2.98 (13 Dec 2017 )
Version 2.97 (8 Dec 2017 )
Version 2.96 (7 Dec 2017 ) Version 2.95 (5 Dec 2017 ) Version 2.94 (26 Oct 2017 ) Version 2.93 (30 Aug 2017 ) Version 2.92 (7 Aug 2017 ) Version 2.91 (31 July 2017 ) Version 2.90 (13 June 2017 ) Version 2.89 (3 May 2017 ) Version 2.88 (31 January 2017 )
Version 2.86 (6 January 2017 ) Version 2.85 (12 December 2016 )
Version 2.84 (1 November 2016 )
Version 2.83 (31 August 2016 ) Version 2.82 (5 August 2016 ) Version 2.81 (12 May 2016 ) Version 2.80 (18 April 2016 ) Version 2.79 (17 March 2016 ) Version 2.78 (17 February 2016 ) Version 2.77 (17 February 2016 ) Version 2.76 (5 February 2016 ) Version 2.75 (4 February 2016 ) Version 2.74 (24 November 2015) Version 2.73 (10 November 2015) Version 2.72 (9 November 2015) Version 2.71 (29 October 2015) Version 2.70 (3 September 2015) Version 2.69 (22 July 2015) Version 2.68 (15 July 2015) Version 2.67 (8 July 2015) Version 2.66 (6 May 2015) Version 2.65 (30 March 2015) Version 2.64 (27 March 2015) Version 2.63 (26 March 2015) Version 2.62 (24 March 2015) Version 2.61 (25 February 2015) Version 2.60 (30 December 2014) Version 2.59 (1 December 2014) Version 2.58 (27 November 2014) Version 2.57 (25 November 2014) Version 2.56 (17 November 2014) Version 2.55 (11 July 2014) Version 2.54 (11 July 2014) Version 2.53 (10 June 2014) Version 2.52 (30 March 2014) Version 2.51 (20 March 2014) Version 2.50 (5 March 2014)
Version 2.43 (17 February 2014)
Version 2.42 (22 January 2014) Version 2.41 (21 December 2013) Version 2.40 (8 July 2013) Version 2.39 (14 May 2013) Version 2.38 (14 March 2013) Version 2.37 (11 January 2013) Version 2.36 (24 November 2012) Version 2.35 (18 September 2012) Version 2.34 (27 August 2012) Version 2.33 (26 June 2012)
Version 2.32 (19 June 2012)
Version 2.31 (5 April 2012) Version 2.30 (10 February 2012) Version 2.29 (10 February 2012) Version 2.28 (24 January 2012) Version 2.27 (11 October 2011) Version 2.26 (6 Sept 2011)  Version 2.25 (20 July 2011) Version 2.24 (28 June 2011) Version 2.23 (4 May 2011) Version 2.22 (24 March 2011) Version 2.21 (24 March 2011) Version 2.20 Version 2.19 Version 2.18 Version 2.17 (24 January 2011) Version 2.16 (19 January 2011) Version 2.15 (14 January 2011) Version 2.14 (1 December 2010) Version 2.13 (27 November 2010) Version 2.12 (15 November 2010) Version 2.11 (26 September 2010) Version 2.10 (24 August 2010) Version 2.09 (4 August 2010) Version 2.08 (23 July 2010) Version 2.07 (12 July 2010) Version 2.06 (18 May 2010) Version 2.05 (2 April 2010) Version 2.04 (March 2010) Version 2.03 (1 March 2010) Version 2.02 (17 February 2010) Version 2.00 (5 January 2010) Version 1.99 (11 December 2009) Version 1.98 Version 1.97 Version 1.96 Version 1.95 Version 1.94 (20 August 2009) Version 1.93 (13 August 2009) Version 1.92 (28 July 2009) Version 1.91 (21 July 2009) Version 1.90 (15 July 2009) Version 1.89 (13 July 2009) Version 1.88 (18 May 2009) Version 1.87 (6 May 2009) Version 1.86 (17 April 2009) Version 1.85 (4 April 2009) Version 1.84 (23 March 2009) Version 1.83 (12 March 2009) Version 1.82 (10 March 2009) Version 1.81 (26 February 2009) Version 1.80 (19 February 2009) Version 1.78 Beta (10 November 2008) Version 1.77 Beta (23 September 2008) Version 1.76 Beta (12 September 2008) Version 1.75 Beta (10 July 2008) Version 1.74 Beta (19 June 2008) Version 1.73 Beta (16 June 2008) Version 1.72 Beta (12 June 2008) Version 1.71 Beta (11 June 2008) Version 1.70 Beta (19 May 2008) Version 1.69 Beta (13 May 2008) Version 1.68 Beta (2 April 2008) Version 1.67 Beta (14 March 2008) Version 1.66 Beta ( 14 March 2008) Version 1.65 Beta (29 Feb 2008) Version 1.64 Beta (20 Feb 2008) Version 1.63 Beta (15 Feb 2008) Version 1.62 Beta (5 November 2007) Version 1.61 Beta (26 October 2007) Version 1.60  Beta (13 September 2007) Version 1.52 Beta (7 September 2007) Version 1.51 Beta (31 August 2007) Version 1.50 Beta (25 July 2007) Version 1.40 Beta (07 July 2007) Version 1.30 Beta (29 June 2007) Version 1.23 Beta (1 May 2007)
Version 1.22 Beta (15 February 2007)
Version 1.20 Beta (06 February 2007)
Version 1.10 Beta (3 August 2006)
Version 1.09 Beta (19 June 2006)
Version 1.08 Beta (19 June 2006)
Version 1.07 Beta (6 June 2006)
Version 1.05 Beta (27 February 2006)
Version 1.04 Beta (10 November 2005)
Version 1.03 Beta (8 November 2005)
Version 1.02 Beta (13 September 2005)
Version 1.01 Beta (08 September 2005)
Version 1.00 Beta (31 August 2005)