Cinema in Context



How to do


How to create a '|'-seperated file for use in MS Access or MS Excel

This is a brief step by step description on how to create a ‘|’-separated file for use in MS Access or MS Excel. Knowledge of XML, XML Parsers and XSLT is required.
- Download your records as XML from the CinemaContext.nl web site. Read this section on how to download data to your local machine.
- Download here our dtd.
- Use an XML Parser to validate the downloaded data against the DTD.
- Download this XSL stylesheet. This stylesheet uses Xalan extensions to create a list of files in the /tmp directory. If you don’t use Xalan, edit the stylesheet to use your processors extensions.
- Use Xalan with the downloaded XML and the stylesheet and create the '|'-seperated files in /tmp.
- Note that the stylesheet creates only a few files as an example. You need to edit the stylesheet to create the parts of the database you need.
- Our relational data model will help you understand how the data is structured.
- Open MS Access and create a new database.
- Go to "file->Import external data->Import".
- Choose file type "text files".
- Choose a file in /tmp.
- Click on Import.
- Choose character-separated and click on next.
- Fill in '|' as the character separator.
- Check "first row contains fieldnames" and click on finish.
- Repeat the import process for all the files.