Web Service, multiple Columns

evgeny

Hi and thank you for reading,

I would like to create a data set from a web service. The web service returns the data in the following structure:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"&gt;
<soap:Header xmlns="http://webservices.example.com/definitions"&gt;
<SessionId>01BKT6JAJ0|7</SessionId>
</soap:Header>
<soap:Body>
<QueryResponse xmlns="http://xml.example.com/RESPONSE_2"&gt;
<result queryId="4">
<header>
<col header="(Name)"/>
<col header="(Address)"/>
<col header="(Contact)"/>
<col header="(date)"/>
<col header="(Code)"/>
</header>
<row>
<col val="Birt"/>
<col val="Internet"/>
<col val="01787"/>
<col val="2009-05-25"/>
<col val="DM"/>
</row>
<row>
<col val="Bird"/>
<col val="Web"/>
<col val="contact@example.com"/>
<col val="2009-11-01"/>
<col val="SDF"/>
</row>
</result>
</QueryResponse>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

However, the column mapping doesn't work like desired.
As you can see, the first col of every row is belonging to the column Name, the second to Address, etc.
The mapping is just seeing the first col of every row, all others are not recognized, so that from the above response all the data is the following:
header: Name
val: Birt

Is there a way to see retrieve the data, so that the example would result in 5 columns of data?

Thanks in advance

Evgeny

bhanley

I have not tested a configuration like this, so I am thinking out loud here. <br />
<br />
BIRT will have trouble differentiating the different column tags into distinct values on a data set "row". BIRT uses XPath to pull the values out of the XML stream. I cannot see an reliable XPath expression that will get you to each distinct value in your data set. <br />
<br />
The order of elements in an XML document is not guaranteed. As such, you may get the correct value sin the correct cells most of the time if you just iterate over each row element's children, but the ability to ensure you ahd the right values each and every time is not there.<br />
<br />
I would consider a scripted data source. This would allow you to process the Web Server in a Java class where you can more directly interact with the web service response to prepare it for BIRT. In the java layer you can transform the XML to something like this:<br />
<br />
<pre class='_prettyXprint _lang-auto _linenums:0'>
<row>
<name val="Birt"/>
<address val="Internet"/>
<contact val="01787"/>
<date val="2009-05-25"/>
<code val="DM"/>
</row>
</pre>
<br />
XML formatted like this would be perfect for consumption by BIRT (or any other entity that needs to build a table-style data set).