IMPORTING XML (GENERIC)
If a file to be imported is recognized as XML, you are always given an
opportunity to select the Generic XML import strategy. This
strategy supports the importing of a wide variety of XML files.
However, if other, more specific, importing strategies are offered,
you should consider whether they are more appropriate.
To use the generic XML strategy effectively, the following must be
true of the XML file.
- It must be possible to interpret each XML element that is directly
nested in the document element as an event (hereafter, "an event
element"). Different event element tag names imply different event
types. The event type names are formed by concatenating the document
element tag with the event element tag, separated by an underscore.
- It must be possible to interpret every attribute (except those on
the document element) as an event attribute. Event attributes that
appear directly on event elements are given simple names. Those that
appear on more deeply nested elements are given names qualified by the
chain of nesting element names, separated by underscores.
- Every event must have a unique attribute (after the previous two
steps) that may be interpreted as a integer timestamp (of any
reasonable precision).
If you select this strategy, you are then asked to choose the
timestamp attribute and its ticks-per-second. After import, every
apparently numeric attribute of every event type (other than the
timestamp attribute) becomes a sample stream that can be manipulated
in TuningFork. The importer can be fooled by attributes that appear
numeric but turn out not to be later in the import. This property may
cause occasional problems with this strategy.