A Magic Parser format string describes the base file type (XML or CSV) and other data representation parameters required by the parser. Providing a format string in the optional 3rd parameter to the main MagicParser_parse() function improves performance by skipping the autodetection process. Format string values contain a number of parameters separated by the pipe ("|") character.
XML Format
| Parameter |
Description |
| 1 - Base Type |
"xml" (without the quotes) |
| 2 - Repeating Element XPath |
The XPath expression of the element within the document that repeats for each record. For example, the repeating element XPath for an RSS feed is "RSS/CHANNEL/ITEM/" (without the quotes) |
CSV Format
| Parameter |
Description |
| 1 - Base Type |
"csv" (without the quotes) |
| 2 - Field Separator |
ASCII character code of the field separator. Common values include 44 (comma), 9 (tab), 124 (pipe) and 59 (semi-colon). Can be any character code in the range 0-255. |
| 3 - Header Row? |
0 (no) or 1 (yes) |
| 4 - Text Delimiter |
ASCII character code of the text delimiter. Common values include 34 (double quote) and 39 (single quote). Can be any character code in the range 1-255. 0 indicates no text delimitation. |
Examples
| xml|PRODUCTS/PRODUCT/ |
XML file, records enclosed by <products><product> ... </product></products> |
| csv|44|0|0 |
CSV file, comma separated values, no header row |
| csv|9|1|0 |
CSV file, tab separated values, header row |
