What is an XML Action?

Creating XML Actions

1. Click and drag the 

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   _action_xml _action_xml nopanel true

    icon from the toolbar onto the canvas
2. Enter a name for the XML action, then select Create Action
3. In the XML action 

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    on the right, populate the following details:

4. 

XPath Syntax

See XML and XPath and XPath Syntax for examples of how different XPath expressions provide different results. 

Output Attributes

Add a list of attributes to be returned by the XML action, using the value _result. followed by the Attribute Expression Syntax (see below) and the name of the element/attribute required. To add an Output Attribute, click the 

Attribute Expression Syntax

XML Namespaces

XML Namespaces provide a method to avoid element name conflicts by ensuring they are unique. XML documents containing namespaces are supported.

For more information on XML Namespaces, see https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_namespaces.asp and XML Namespace. Also, see Namespaces in the Example XML below.

Example XML

<root xmlns:h="http://example.com/schema"> 
	<main page="PF Main Page"> 
		<h:title name="PF Title">PF Title Text">
			<h:datarow> 
				<h:data h:initials="AA">Alistair Andrews<data>
				<h:data h:initials="BB">Bert Brown</data> 
			</h:datarow> 
		</h:title> 
	</main> 
</root>

XPath

/root/main/title 

Results

The following examples show how to reference the returned XPath's XML data structure in an Output Attribute:

Note the use of:

• ^ to traverse to the immediate parent element
• . to traverse to the immediate child element

• the listToString function to handle multiple matching child elements/attributes

Namespaces

XPath

Within path expressions, namespaces are referred to using semicolons. 

• /root/main/h:title

A record is created for each element returned by the path. Therefore, we do not recommend returning the root as this only returns a single record.

Results

Within attribute expressions, a $ is used instead of the normal : namespace notation.

The namespace prefix used here 'h' must be configured in the XML Namespace.

Worked Example

Here is a worked example using an XML file from BBC News (https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml).

In this example, we are using:  

• A Shop News screen containing a blank grid and a button  - this screen was created using the Multi-tile template

Create an RSS Feed using XML Data

In this example, we'll create a table containing BBC News from an XML file.

Table Setup

1. Create a new 

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    on your 

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    to save the news data to, and ensure it contains the following attributes:
   1. Name: UID
      1. Type: Integer
      2. Expression: _NULL
   2. Name: Title
      1. Type: String
      2. Expression: _NULL
   3. Name: Description
      1. Type: Bigstring
      2. Expression: _NULL
   4. Name: Link
      1. Type: String
      2. Expression: _NULL
   5. Name: Date
      1. Type: Datetime
      2. Expression: _NULL
   6. Name: Source
      1. Type: String
      2. Expression: _NULL

Actionflow Setup 

1. On the Shop News screen, add an Actionflow on the Start RSS Feed button
2. Select Click to Connect and choose On Click
3. Drag a 

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    action onto the canvas and give it a suitable name - this will be used to retrieve the news from the XML document
4. Drag the 

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    connection point node onto the

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    action
5. Click on the 

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    action to open its Properties
   1. HTTP Method: GET
   2. URL: https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml
6. Drag a 

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    action onto the canvas and give it a suitable name - this will be used to convert the XML data into data suitable for PhixFlow to process
7. Connect the out connector from the 

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    to the

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    action

   1. Map across all attributesthe attribute, body
      

      Expand
      title Checkpoint

      
      

XML Action Setup

1. Click on the 

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    action to open its Properties and populate the following:
   1. Input Expression: in.body
   2. Path: /rss/channel/item

   3. Output Attributes:
      

      Code Block
      theme Emacs title Name: Title, Type: String
      _result.title

      
      

      Code Block
      theme Emacs title Name: Description, Type: Bigstring
      _result.description

      
      

      Code Block
      theme Emacs title Name: Link, Type: String
      _result.link

      
      

      Code Block
      theme Emacs title Name: ID, Type: String
      _NULL

      
      

      Code Block
      theme Emacs title Name: Date, Type: Datetime
      do( $dater = replaceAll(_result.pubDate, " GMT", ""), $dater = substring($dater, 6), toDate($dater, "dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss") )

      
      

      Code Block
      theme Emacs title Name: Source, Type: String
      _result.^.title

      
      

2. Hover over the XML action and select out
3. Create a

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    action
   1. Primary Table: The News table you created earlier

   2. Map across the XML attributes to their relevant attributes on the Save action

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      title How?

      
      

Screen Setup

1. Open the Shop News screen
2. Click on 

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    in the toolbar, then select the News table you created earlier
3. In the Available Attributes selector, select all attributes and drag them onto the screen, then choose to display the data as a 

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Testing

1. On the Shop News screen,

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    the screen and click the Start RSS Feed button
2. If the Actionflow is working, the News grid should contain all of the BBC News data

2.15 Analysis Action Configuration