| title | category | tags |
|---|---|---|
Importing XML documents |
Integration |
Mendix is "The App Platform for the Enterprise" and in enterprise software it is not likely that you work in a green field. In almost every situation you will need to integrate with existing systems. Mendix supports many ways of integration but this how-to focuses on how you can import XML documents with Mendix.
The XML document that is used during this how-to contains customers. To be able to see the imported data, you first need to setup the data structure and GUI to maintain customer data. Then you need to facilitate uploading and downloading of XML documents. Finally you'll create the actual import logic and corresponding import mapping.
Before you continue, make sure that you know how to create:
- Domain models, if you need more info, take a look at this how-to.
- Custom File Document, if you need more info, take a look at this how-to.
- Overview and detail pages, if you need more info, take a look at this how-to.
- Menu items, if you need more info, take a look at this how-to.
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Create the following entity Customer in your domain model:
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Create overview and detail pages to manage objects of type Customer.
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Create a menu item to access the customer overview page.
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Create an entity called XMLDocument that inherits all properties from System.FileDocument.
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Create overview and detail pages to manage objects of type XMLDocument.
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Create a menu item to access the XML document overview page. If you don't know how to create menu items, take a look at this how-to.
Whether you plan to import or export documents; working with XML means that your application must contain an XML schema (also called XSD). An XSD describes the possible contents of an XML file. Based on this XSD your application knows how to read or write an XML file. If you don't have an XSD file; there are a couple of online XSD generators that accept an XML document as input. For this how-to you can use Customers.xsd.
1. Right click a module in the project explorer and select Add > Document from the menu. You can also use shortcut Ctrl+N.
2. Select XML Schema as document type and click OK.
3. Enter CustomersXSD as name and click OK.
4. In the XML schema editor click Select... and select the XSD file that you downloaded earlier.
5. Click OK to save the XML Schema. You'll be using this schema in the following steps
The XML Schema describes what the possible contents of an XML file are, but we need to create an XML-to-Domain mapping to define how the data in the XML document is imported into the application.
1. Right click a module in the project explorer and select Add > Document from the menu. You can also use shortcut Ctrl+N.
2. Select XML-to-Domain mapping as document type and click OK.
- Enter ImportCustomersMapping as name and click OK. The new mapping will open automatically and the elements will be shown.
4. Select XML schema as source.
5. Select the CustomerXSD as schema.
6. Click the Expand all button. You should now see the following tree with elements:
7. Select the elements; Customer, ID, CompanyName, Address, City and PostalCode.
8. Click OK. You should now see the first part of the import mapping like this:
9. Open the connector, it should be in the lower right of the Mendix Modeler.
10. If you can't find the connector, you can re-open it from the view menu.
11. Drag the entity Customer from the connector to place holder in the mapping editor.
The mapping editor for this element will open automatically.
12. Select Search for an object as Find method. To be able to search an object you need to define one or more keys in the value to attribute mappings.
13. Make sure that a new object is created if no object was found.
14. Select attributes for all 5 value to attribute mappings.
15. Select CustomerID as key, you should have to following mapping:
16. Click OK to save the mapping.
In this section you will create logic to import customers stored in a XML document in your application.
1. Open the XMLDocument overview page. It should look this, using a default layout:
2. Right click the toolbar of the data grid widget and select **Add button > Action **to add a new action button.
3. Double click the new button to open the properties editor.
4. Change the caption to Import XML Document.
5. Select Call a microflow as the **On click **event.
6. Click **Select **for the microflow, create a new microflow and name it XMLDocument_Import.
7. Click OK to save the properties.
8. Right click the new microflow button and click Go to microflow in the context menu. You should see an empty microflow with an XMLDocument as input parameter.
9. Open the toolbox. It should be on the bottom right of the Mendix Modeler. If you can't find the toolbox, you can re-open it from the view menu.
10. Drag an Import XML activity from the toolbox to the line between the start and end event. This inserts a new import XML activity.
- Double click the new activity to open the properties editor:
11. Select input paramater XMLDocument as XML document.
- Select the previously created XML-to-Domain mapping ImportCustomersMapping as mapping.
13. Click OK to save the properties. The microflow should look like this:
1. Deploy the application, upload Customers.xml and trigger the import microflow.
- Open the customer overview page and check if the customer data is imported into your application.