Preventing tags from being written into an XML file

yogesh.r · Post by **yogesh.r** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 6:47 am

There is a requirement where I have to create a XML output file. While creating this file I have to conditionally filter out certain tags i.e. prevent the tags from being writtent into the XML file.

e.g.

<Department>
<DepartmentId>112</DepartmentId>
<EmployeeName>John</EmployeeName>
<EmployeeId>101</EmployeeName>
<EmployeeName>ZZ</EmployeeName>
<EmployeeId>00</EmployeeName>
</Department>

From the example it can be seen that a default employee 'ZZ' is being generated. I want to prevent the tag <EmployeeName>ZZ</EmployeeName> from being written into the output XML file. How can I acheive this. This there any setting in the XML output stage that can help me acheive this.

chulett · Post by **chulett** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 7:32 am

Your example is a little messed up. Did you actually mean something more like?

<Department>
<DepartmentId>112</DepartmentId>
<EmployeeName>John</EmployeeName>
<EmployeeId>101</EmployeeID>
<EmployeeName>ZZ</EmployeeName>
<EmployeeId>00</EmployeeId>
</Department>

And you need to suppress the 'ZZ' name or the '00' employee id?

ArjunK · Post by **ArjunK** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 9:02 am

Based on the column value that you want to filter out, you can capture and transform it to an empty string in a transformer. Then in the XML output stage set the "Replace Empty values with NULL" property and that should prevent the tag from getting generated.

eostic · Post by **eostic** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 10:46 am

...or alternatively you could also just make sure that the value for that column on that row is truly "null"...the default is to not create the element tag....

...of course, it's strange that the receiving application cares.....it should be able to handle empty elements.

Ernie

yogesh.r · Post by **yogesh.r** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 3:31 am

chulett, Apologies for a bit confusing example.

Arjun/Ernie,
Thanks for your comments. I was able to prevent the tag from being written into my xml file.

chulett · Post by **chulett** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 7:42 am

No worries. Could you do a couple of things, please? It would help future searchers if you posted how you were able to solve this and please mark your post as Resolved using the button at the top of the screen.

yogesh.r · Post by **yogesh.r** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:30 am

As suggested by Arjun and Ernie. I changed the datatype of the column to nullable 'Yes' and if the required condition was not satisfied I set the column to a null value using setNull(). Doing this prevented the tag from being written into the output XML.