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Sams Teach Yourself XML in 21 Days

Sep 16, 2005

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Handling Hierarchical XML Data

The last topic today concerns hierarchical record sets, where one field can contain an entire child record set. As data evolves, it becomes very useful; it means we can organize our data into project records, for example, and each project record can have a field that contains a record set listing personnel, parts needed, or code files.

XML documents let us store hierarchical data, and all we have to do to make it happen is nest elements. For example, say that you want to keep track of your friends in the various states in your states XML document. To do that, add a new element, <friends>, which contains various <friend> elements, like this:

<state>
    <name>California</name>
    <population>33871648</population>
    <capital>Sacramento</capital>
    <bird>Quail</bird>
    <flower>Golden Poppy</flower>
    <area units="square miles">155959</area>
    <friends>

           <friend>

               <firstName>Tom</firstName>

               <lastName>Marshall</lastName>

           </friend>

           <friend>

               <firstName>Ed</firstName>

               <lastName>Norton</lastName>

           </friend>
    </friends>
</state>

The friends field, which contains multiple friend records, now contains a record set and is arranged hierarchically. You can add a friends record to every state in your sample XML document, as shown in Listing 19.10.

Example 19.10. XML with Hierarchical Data (`ch19_10.xml`)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding ="UTF-8"?>
<states>

    <state>
        <name>California</name>
        <population>33871648</population>
        <capital>Sacramento</capital>
        <bird>Quail</bird>
        <flower>Golden Poppy</flower>
        <area units="square miles">155959</area>
        <friends>
            <friend>
                <firstName>Tom</firstName>
                <lastName>Marshall</lastName>
            </friend>
            <friend>
                <firstName>Ed</firstName>
                <lastName>Norton</lastName>
            </friend>
        </friends>
    </state>

    <state>
        <name>Massachusetts</name>
        <population>6349097</population>
        <capital>Boston</capital>
        <bird>Chickadee</bird>
        <flower>Mayflower</flower>
        <area units="square miles">7840</area>
        <friends>
            <friend>
                <firstName>Frank</firstName>
                <lastName>Stein</lastName>
            </friend>
            <friend>
                <firstName>Britta</firstName>
                <lastName>Regensburg</lastName>
            </friend>
            <friend>
                <firstName>Ralph</firstName>
                <lastName>Kramden</lastName>
            </friend>
        </friends>
    </state>

    <state>
        <name>New York</name>
        <population>18976457</population>
        <capital>Albany</capital>
        <bird>Bluebird</bird>
        <flower>Rose</flower>
        <area units="square miles">47214</area>
        <friends>
            <friend>
                <firstName>Trixie</firstName>
                <lastName>Norton</lastName>
            </friend>
        </friends>
    </state>
</states>

Now each friends field contains a record set. The best way to see how this works is by using an HTML table that displays your data in a hierarchical fashion. You'll start with an XML island connected to your new XML document, ch19_10.xml, and a table connected to that XML island that is set up to display the names of the states:

<XML SRC="ch19_10.xml" ID=states></XML>

<TABLE DATASRC="#states" BORDER="1">
    <TR>
        <TH><DIV DATAFLD="name"></DIV></TH>
        .
        .
        .

Now you'll display the data in the friends field, which you can handle as a record set itself. You can refer to that record set as friends.friend, which makes sense in a hierarchy. In this case, you'll display the contents of each friends.friend record set in its own nested table:

<XML SRC="ch19_10.xml" ID=states></XML>

<TABLE DATASRC="#states" BORDER="1">
    <TR>
        <TH><DIV DATAFLD="name"></DIV></TH>
        <TD>

               <TABLE DATASRC="#states"

               DATAFLD="friends">

                   <TR>

                       <TD>

                       <TABLE BORDER="1">

                           <TR ALIGN = "LEFT">

                               <TH WIDTH="128">First Name</TH>

                               <TH WIDTH="128">Last Name</TH>

                           </TR>

                       </TABLE>

                       <TABLE DATASRC="#states"

                           CELLPADDING = "5"

                           DATAFLD="friends.friend"
        .
        .
        .

Now that you've tied this new table to the friends.friend records set, display the data from the fields in that record set, like this:

<XML SRC="ch19_10.xml" ID=states></XML>

<TABLE DATASRC="#states" BORDER="1">
    <TR>
        <TH><DIV DATAFLD="name"></DIV></TH>
        <TD>
            <TABLE DATASRC="#states"
            DATAFLD="friends">
                <TR>
                    <TD>
                    <TABLE BORDER="1">
                        <TR ALIGN = "LEFT">
                            <TH WIDTH="128">First Name</TH>
                            <TH WIDTH="128">Last Name</TH>
                        </TR>
                    </TABLE>
                    <TABLE DATASRC="#states"
                        CELLPADDING = "5"
                        DATAFLD="friends.friend"
                        BORDER="1">
                        <TR ALIGN = "LEFT">

                               <TD WIDTH="120"><DIV

                               DATAFLD="firstName">

                               </DIV></TD>

                               <TD WIDTH="120"><DIV

                               DATAFLD="lastName">

                               </DIV></TD>

                           </TR>
                    </TABLE>
                    </TD>
                </TR>
            </TABLE>
        </TD>
    </TR>
</TABLE>

Figure 19.8 shows the results; as the figure shows, you've been able to display all the child record sets for each state, treating your record sets as hierarchical.

Figure 19.8 Handling hierarchical record sets.

Listing 19.11 shows the complete code for this example.

Example 19.11. Displaying Hierarchical XML Data (`ch19_11.html`)

<HTML>
    <HEAD>
        <TITLE>
            Hierarchical records in XML
        </TITLE>
    </HEAD>

    <BODY>
        <H1>
            Hierarchical records in XML
        </H1>

        <XML SRC="ch19_10.xml" ID=states></XML>

        <TABLE DATASRC="#states" BORDER="1">
            <TR>
                <TH><DIV DATAFLD="name"></DIV></TH>
                <TD>
                    <TABLE DATASRC="#states"
                    DATAFLD="friends">
                        <TR>
                            <TD>
                            <TABLE BORDER="1">
                                <TR ALIGN = "LEFT">
                                    <TH WIDTH="128">First Name</TH>
                                    <TH WIDTH="128">Last Name</TH>
                                </TR>
                            </TABLE>
                            <TABLE DATASRC="#states"
                                CELLPADDING = "5"
                                DATAFLD="friends.friend"
                                BORDER="1">
                                <TR ALIGN = "LEFT">
                                    <TD WIDTH="120"><DIV DATAFLD="firstName">
                                    </DIV></TD>
                                    <TD WIDTH="120"><DIV
                                    DATAFLD="lastName">
                                    </DIV></TD>
                                </TR>
                            </TABLE>
                            </TD>
                        </TR>
                    </TABLE>
                </TD>
            </TR>
        </TABLE>
    </BODY>
</HTML>

That's it for today's discussion on data binding. There's a lot going on here, but for now, we're limited to the support in Internet Explorer. Tomorrow, we'll talk about more ways of handling XML data as we start discussing XML and databases.

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