mmcnab Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 I'm new to XML. I have a questionairre, the results of which, I can process through .ASP and display in an XML document like the following:<?xml version="1.0" ?> - <newdata>- <field id="T1" taborder="1"><field_value>mon, tue, wed</field_value> </field>- <field id="RadioGroup1" taborder="2"><field_value>bus</field_value> </field>- <field id="RadioGroup2" taborder="3"><field_value>spouse</field_value> </field>- <field id="RadioGroup3" taborder="4"><field_value>some</field_value> </field>- <field id="textfield" taborder="5"><field_value>arniemonday</field_value> </field>- <field id="submit" taborder="6"><field_value>Submit</field_value> </field>- <field id="name" taborder="7"><field_value>Arnold Palmer</field_value> </field></newdata>How do I stop the data from refreshing every time a new user submits their data? In other words I want the data to keep "stacking" until I am ready to import all of the responses into Excel. I've been to more forums and read more tutorials than you can imagine and just cannot get it! Thanks for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesockets Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 This sounds like a design problem. You need to store the resulting data somewhere or it is lost on every new request. I would imagine your application has some kind of persistence mechanism where you can store the result of this query, and then on succeeding queries, append the new data to your existing data.If you dont store the results it will get wiped every time.There are many different kinds of scope that you can use, and picking the proper one and implementing it will accomplish your goal. For example if you have a web counter, and you want it to refresh per session visit, you can store the hit count in a session scoped variable. This means that when the user's session expires, the counter will be reset since the user's session data is not persisted. If you want the hit counter to store the hit count beyond the session scope, you'll have to store the hit count in something like a database, which can persist data beyond a session or a request. At the moment, your results get whiped out on every request because I am guessing your application is returning results within a request scope. I suggest using some kind of filter design pattern that intercepts your query and stores it somewhere for later retrieval, probably in a session variable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmcnab Posted October 24, 2006 Author Share Posted October 24, 2006 Thank you for your response, but I was looking for something more specific. I do not need a hit counter. I need to retrieve quastionairre answers. I need help in creating a 'container' for the xml files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jesh Posted October 24, 2006 Share Posted October 24, 2006 Are you using the FileSystemObject to write your XML file?If so, you use the CreateTextFile method of the FileSystemObject and you can specify whether you overwrite previous data that is in the file or append the data to the contents of the file.The XML file will need to have a single root element - perhaps called "questionnaire" - that will contain all of your "newdata" elements. Perhaps it could look something like this: <questionnaire><newdata></newdata><newdata></newdata><newdata></newdata></questionnaire> Every time you need to write new data to the file, you could read the file contents, delete the last line of the file (the "</questionnaire>" line), append the new data to the end of the file, and then append "</questionnaire>" back to the end. That way "</questionnaire>" will always be the last line of the data and each new "newdata" element will be appended just above that closing "questionnaire" tag. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmcnab Posted October 24, 2006 Author Share Posted October 24, 2006 I am using server.CreateObject to create the xml file. Here is the ASP script I am using to collect the data and output to XML:<%@LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /><title>Untitled Document</title></head><body><%'--------------------------------------------------------------------'The "ConvertFormtoXML" Function accepts to parameters.'strXMLFilePath - The physical path where the XML file will be saved.'strFileName - The name of the XML file that will be saved.'--------------------------------------------------------------------Function ConvertFormtoXML(strXMLFilePath, strFileName) 'Declare local variables. Dim objDom Dim objRoot Dim objField Dim objFieldValue Dim objattID Dim objattTabOrder Dim objPI Dim x 'Instantiate the Microsoft XMLDOM. Set objDom = server.CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM") objDom.preserveWhiteSpace = True 'Create your root element and append it to the XML document. Set objRoot = objDom.createElement("newdata") objDom.appendChild objRoot 'Iterate through the Form Collection of the Request Object. For x = x+1 To Request.Form.Count 'Check to see if "btn" is in the name of the form element. If it is, 'then it is a button and we do not want to add it to the XML 'document". If instr(1,Request.Form.Key(x),"btn") = 0 Then 'Create an element, "field". Set objField = objDom.createElement("field") 'Create an attribute, "id". Set objattID = objDom.createAttribute("id") 'Set the value of the id attribute equal the the name of the current 'form field. objattID.Text = Request.Form.Key(x) 'The setAttributeNode method will append the id attribute to the 'field element. objField.setAttributeNode objattID 'Create another attribute, "taborder". This just orders the 'elements. Set objattTabOrder = objDom.createAttribute("taborder") 'Set the value of the taborder attribute. objattTabOrder.Text = x 'Append the taborder attribute to the field element. objField.setAttributeNode objattTabOrder 'Create a new element, "field_value". Set objFieldValue = objDom.createElement("field_value") 'Set the value of the field_value element equal to the value of the 'current field in the Form Collection. objFieldValue.Text = Request.Form(x) 'Append the field element as a child of the root element. objRoot.appendChild objField 'Append the field_value element as a child of the field elemnt. objField.appendChild objFieldValue End If Next 'Create the xml processing instruction. Set objPI = objDom.createProcessingInstruction("xml", "version='1.0'") 'Append the processing instruction to the XML document. objDom.insertBefore objPI, objDom.childNodes(0) 'Save the XML document. objDom.save strXMLFilePath & "\" & strFileName 'Release all of your object references. End Function'Do not break on an error.On Error Resume Next'Call the ConvertFormtoXML function, passing in the physical path to'save the file to and the name that you wish to use for the file.ConvertFormtoXML "c:/inetpub/wwwroot/casino/mohegan","newdata.XML"'Test to see if an error occurred, if so, let the user know.'Otherwise, tell the user that the operation was successful.If err.number <> 0 then Response.write("Errors occurred while saving your form submission.")Else Response.write("Thank you for participating in our survey! Please use your 'BACK' button to return to your home page.")End If%> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jesh Posted October 24, 2006 Share Posted October 24, 2006 I think you need to change the way you are organizing the data in the XML file. Your current root node is "newdata" and you are storing the answers to the questions in "field" elements. What you are lacking here is a way to differentiate one user's data from another user's data.Either change your XML so that it is something like: <questionnaire><newdata id="cust1"> <field /></newdata><newdata id="cust2"> <field /></newdata></questionnaire> or: <newdata><userdata id="cust1"> <field /></userdata><userdata id="cust2"> <field /></userdata></newdata> Now, I don't know much about using server.CreateObject to create an XML file so I can't provide any code, but it sounds like you're going to have to read the contents of the XML file before you convert the inputs from the form into XML. Then you'll need to append the XML that is generated from the inputs to what is already loaded in your XML object. Once that is done, you can write the data to back to the file. Otherwise, you'll continue to overwrite the previous user's data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmcnab Posted October 30, 2006 Author Share Posted October 30, 2006 I think you need to change the way you are organizing the data in the XML file. Your current root node is "newdata" and you are storing the answers to the questions in "field" elements. What you are lacking here is a way to differentiate one user's data from another user's data.Either change your XML so that it is something like:<questionnaire><newdata id="cust1"> <field /></newdata><newdata id="cust2"> <field /></newdata></questionnaire> or: <newdata><userdata id="cust1"> <field /></userdata><userdata id="cust2"> <field /></userdata></newdata> Now, I don't know much about using server.CreateObject to create an XML file so I can't provide any code, but it sounds like you're going to have to read the contents of the XML file before you convert the inputs from the form into XML. Then you'll need to append the XML that is generated from the inputs to what is already loaded in your XML object. Once that is done, you can write the data to back to the file. Otherwise, you'll continue to overwrite the previous user's data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmcnab Posted October 30, 2006 Author Share Posted October 30, 2006 I guess that could work, except that I will have potential ranges of 5,000 to 50,000 customers. That would constitute quite a file!I need to build a container. Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jesh Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 The information from 5,000 to 50,000 customers will be entered into that form between the times that you are able to import the data into your Excel spreadsheet? Is there a reason you aren't using a database like MySQL or SQL Server? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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