Requirements

The general requirement for this utility is to convert one or more XML instance documents, each representing a single logical document, into a single CSV file. As with the CSV to XML utility, this is a significant improvement over the utility presented in Chapter 2. Again, many of the restrictions on both the CSV file format and the grammar of the resulting XML document are removed. Here's a summary of the required functionality.

• Inputs: A directory containing one or more XML instance documents, each in a single file. All have the same grammar. The second input is an XML file description document (as discussed in Chapter 6) describing the XML documents and the CSV file to be produced.

• Processing: Each input Element corresponding to a row (as described in the file description document) is written to a record in the CSV output file. Each of its child Elements corresponding to columns are written to the appropriate column numbers. Column delimiter characters are inserted, and data types are converted according to the column descriptions in the file description document.

• Output: A CSV file in row and column organization.