Use the XML namespace properties tab to specify the namespaces defined in an XML response. PhixFlow needs this information because an XML namespace ensures the names, elements and attributes in the file are unique. An XML instance may contain element or attribute names from more than one XML vocabulary. If each vocabulary is given a namespace, the ambiguity between identically named elements or attributes can be resolved.
This setting property tab is not available from the repository browser. It opens from:
- the HTTP Collector properties
- the File Collector properties when the File Type is XML
...
| Field | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Enter a name for the XML namespace. The name must match the name you use in XPath expressions to extract data from the XML response. Example 1. Specify the name
Example 2. Specify the name
See HTTP Collectors for examples of using namespaces in XPath expressions to extract data from XML responses. | ||
| Value | Value Enter the value of the XML namespace. For example:
|
Using Default Namespaces
Documents can use:
- a namespace to refer to an element
- a default namespace to refer to any element in an XPath expression that does not explicitly use a namespace.
If a document uses a default namespace, you must define an XML namespace name for it. The following example illustrates shows how a default namespace defined in an XML response is handled.
XML Document
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns="urn:xmlns:company-com:message" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:pf="urn:phixflow.message.com"> <soapenv:Body> <queryResponse> <result xsi:type="QueryResult"> <done>true</done> <queryLocator xsi:nil="true"/> <record xsi:type="pf:sObject"> <pf:type>Account</pf:type> <pf:Name>Company1</pf:Name> <pf:CreatedDate>2013-10-31T11:26:21.000Z</pf:CreatedDate> </record> <record xsi:type="pf:sObject"> <pf:type>Account</pf:type> <pf:Name>Company2</pf:Name> <pf:CreatedDate>2013-10-31T11:26:21.000Z</pf:CreatedDate> </record> <size>2</size> </result> </queryResponse> </soapenv:Body> </soapenv:Envelope>
Since In this document uses a the default namespace , is "urn:xmlns:company-com:message", to refer to any element in an XPath expression that does not explicitly use a namespace you must use the default namespace. So to extract all record elements, you must first define a namespace in the collector for the default namespace. Suppose that you do and give this the name def. Then the XPath (defined in the XPath field on the Response tab) to extract all record elements will be . To extract all the record elements from the document, in the file or HTTP collector, set the:
- XML namespace to have a default namespace, for example
def. - Response section → XPath field to extract the records from the default namespace:
//def:record.
In a More commonly, you will want to extract an element from a record to add it to the stream that reads from this collector, any other namespaces defined in the document are used as normal. In this case, use the other namespaces, such as xmlns:pf="urn:phixflow.message.com". For example, to write the value from the element Name within each record element to a Stream stream attribute, you would use the attribute expression in.sf$Name.