Please help me with this program to parse a file into an XML file.

Question

To parse an input text file and generate a) an XML file and b) an SVG (also XML) file.

The input text file (input.txt) contains the description of a number of produce distribution centers and storage centers around the country. Each line describes either a single distribution center (dcenter) or a storage center, each with a number of properties; each property name (code for example) is separated by its value with a =.

Example (input.txt)

dcenter: code=d1, loc=San Jose, x=100, y=100, ctype=ct1
dcenter: code=d2, loc=San Ramon, x=300, y=200, ctype=ct2
storage: code=s1, locFrom=d1, x=50, y=50, rtype=rt1
storage: code=s2, locFrom=d1, x=-50,y=100, rtype=rt1

The desired Output of the program:

Output 1

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<dcenters>
<dcenter code="d1">
<loc> San Jose </loc>
<x> 100 </x>
<y> 100 </y>
<ctype> ct1 </ctype>
</dcenter>
<storage code="S1">
<locFrom> d1 </locFrom>
<x> 150 </x>
<y> 150 </y>
<rtype> rt1 </rtype>
</storage>
<storage code="S2">
<locFrom> d1 </locFrom>
<x> 50 </x>
<y> 200 </y>
<rtype> rt1 </rtype>
</storage>

Please help me with the program. I will really appreciate.

Answer 1

Suppose the input is in string s; either from direct assignment or from file.read:

s="""dcenter: code=d1, loc=San Jose, x=100, y=100, ctype=ct1
dcenter: code=d2, loc=San Ramon, x=300, y=200, ctype=ct2
storage: code=s1, locFrom=d1, x=50, y=50, rtype=rt1
storage: code=s2, locFrom=d1, x=-50,y=100, rtype=rt1"""

Then you can this:

print '<?xml version="1.0"?>'
print "<dcenters>"
for line in s.splitlines():
    type, fields = line.split(":")
    params = fields.split(",")
    code = params[0].split("=")[1].strip()
    print '<%s code="%s">' % (type, code)
    for p in params[1:]:
        ptype, pvalue = p.strip().split("=")
        print '<%s> %s </%s>' % (ptype, pvalue, ptype)
    print '</%s>' % type
print "</dcenters>"

Not sure why d2 is missing from your sample output; I assume that's by mistake.