Merging XML Files together into merged.xml file

Question

I will try to make my question as short as possible and with every detail needed..

I have a folder with MANY XML files and I need to merge all them together to have only one XML with all the details inside each one of them (merged.xml)

I would like to make that merge using XSL transform and a batch file

Examples of XML files:

File1.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<Errors>
<Error>
<Number>1</Number>
...Some other elements...
</Error>
</Errors>

File2.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<Errors>
</Error>
<Number>2</Number>
...Some other elements...
</Error>
</Errors>

Batch file code used to run XSL transformation on files:

for %%f in (File*.xml) do (
msxsl "%%~nf.xml" merge.xsl >> "merged.xml"
)
pause

I tried this XSL transformation:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>

<xsl:template match="/Errors">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="//*/Error"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>


<xsl:template match="@* | node()">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="@* | node()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

However the output (merged.xml) file is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<Errors>
<Error>
<Number>1</Number>
...Some other elements...
</Error>
</Errors>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<Errors>
<Error>
<Number>2</Number>
...Some other elements...
</Error>
</Errors>

The needed (merged.xml) file is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<Errors>
<Error>
<Number>1</Number>
...Some other elements...
</Error>
<Error>
<Number>2</Number>
...Some other elements...
</Error>
</Errors>

Sorry for making it long!!

Thanks in advance :) Looking forward you answer

Answer 1

XSLT is not the tool to use. Based on your desired results, you just want to concatenate all the files together, with the caveat that the resulting file is a well-formed XML document. Basic algorithm:

• For each file, remove <?xml?> processing instructions, <Errors> , and </Errors> tags.
• Concatentate all files together
• Prepend <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?><Errors> to concatentated output.
• Append </Errors> to concatendated output.

These steps can likely be streamlined by using the proper tool: Perl, Python, et.al.

Just cuz the data is XML does not mean you have to use an XML tool to get the job done.