Command line to run a transformation on a source file

[mlcook]

I am hoping it is possible to use the Oxygen 10 command line to invoke a transformation on an XML source file.

Is this possible, and if so, what options and parameters are needed?

Essentially, we'd like to be able to run an "Apply Transformation Scenario" from the command line on a given file.

We'd like to develop a Windows XP script (batch file) to invoke transformations.

Is any of this possible?

Thanks, Mike

[sorin_ristache]

Hello,

No, it is not possible to run a transformation from the command line. You can specify in the command line that starts Oxygen a list of files that will be opened automatically on startup and as option a schema for validating each specified file but a transformation cannot be executed from the command line.


Regards,
Sorin

[djharris]

You actually can run a transform from the command line, but NOT using Oxygen.

After you have your transform working in Oxygen, find the documentation for that vendor's transform and call it from the command line. It will likely be different for different vendors.

For example, to call Saxon-SA from the command line (you'll need a license from Saxonica) my command line looks like this:

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java -cp c:\oxml\lib\saxon9sa.jar;c:\oxml\lib\license com.saxonica.Transform -val:strict -sa -o table13.txt Letter_XML.xml table13ToTAB.xslt

Oxygen comes with a license for Saxon-SA but it seems to only be for using from within Oxygen as there's no physical license file (that I could find). In my case I asked Saxonica for a 30-day trial license and made a license directory under Oxygen's lib directory, placed the license file there, and put that directory in the class path (after the -cp above).

Also, I just used the saxon-sa that came with Oxygen but if I wanted to put this on a separate system without violating my Oxygen license I could just download the Saxon-SA transformer:

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java -cp saxon\saxon9sa.jar;saxon\license com.saxonica.Transform -val:strict -sa -o table14.txt Letter_XML.xml table14ToTAB.xslt

It WOULD be nice if Oxygen could tell us which options are relevant for a specific vendor's transformer. It took me a few tries to figure out I needed the strict validation (-val:strict) option. I couldn't find any options inside of Oxygen that would make them reveal how they were calling Saxon-SA, and, short of reverse-engineering Oxygen, don't know how else to find out.

[mlcook]

Thanks for the information.


Any idea of how to run a transformation using LIBXML? Or even Saxon-B which shouldn't need a license? Would using "saxon.jar" instead of "saxon9sa.jar" do the job? I assume the "-o" option specifies the output file, while the .xml and .xslt files are the input and transformation files?

Our current transformations should work with Saxon-B, since they don't have any schema aware elements.

Thanks, Mike

[djharris]

Thanks for the information.


Any idea of how to run a transformation using LIBXML? Or even Saxon-B which shouldn't need a license? Would using "saxon.jar" instead of "saxon9sa.jar" do the job? I assume the "-o" option specifies the output file, while the .xml and .xslt files are the input and transformation files?

Our current transformations should work with Saxon-B, since they don't have any schema aware elements.

Thanks, Mike

I see no reason why they wouldn't work, but, like I said, you'll need to check their docs.

Very quickly I download the saxon9B files, placed them in a saxon9 subdirectory of my project, and ran the following:

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java -cp saxon9\saxon9.jar net.sf.saxon.Transform -o table14.txt Letter_XML.xml table14ToTAB.xslt

It seemed to work (notice the different package for Transform) but my specific transform requires schema awareness so the results aren't exactly correct.

[mlcook]

I've been able to run a transformation based the java commands above.

OK, how about performing a *validation* via a command line?

I'd like to do both an External Validation with my schema that contains Schematron assertions, and a 'regular' "Reset Cache and Validate" equivalent, since my schema also has identity constraints using unique and key constraints.

Any idea how to do that from a script command line?

Thanks again, Mike

[george]

For Schematron you just need to apply a couple of stylesheets. Its implementation is one stylesheet that is applied on the schema and gives another stylesheet that basically represents the schema compiled into executable code. Then, this result stylesheet is applied on your input document and you get the validation results. See http://www.schematron.com for the reference implementation.

For XML Schema look at the processor you want to use for its command line options. In case of Xerces you need to use one of its samples.

Best Regards,
George

[mlcook]

I'm beginning to catch on to the schema processing commands and using the external validation (e.g. Schematron) commands.

Once I began studying the command log windows that appear during validation, things started to make more sense. I realized more what I was seeing.

New questions:

When running xmllint via the "LIBXML" menu command I see something like this:

C:\Program Files\Oxygen XML Editor 10/xmllint --noout --catalogs --xinclude --schema file.xsd file.xml

What does the --catalogs option do?
Where is the catalog file (since when I run this command in a Windows batch file, there is no catalog file available)?
How do I make it available?

And, what are "catalogs" anyway, and do I really need one?

Thanks for more information,
Mike

[sorin_ristache]

Hello,

The --catalog option enables using the XML catalogs added in Oxygen from menu Options -> Preferences -> XML -> XML Catalog. If you want to set your own XML catalogs in a command line that you run outside Oxygen please see the LIBXML documentation.


Regards,
Sorin