Input · Files

XML Reader

Reads an XML file into a table. It finds the repeating record element for you, so each record becomes a row.

Also known as: XML feed

How it works

A drone parses the file and makes one row out of each element at Record path, named from the root down, for example export/orders/order. Leave Record path blank and the drone detects the repeating element and fills the field in once it connects. Nested elements become dotted columns and repeated child elements become lists.

Inputs and outputs

Settings

Example

An orders.xml whose rows are <order> elements under <export><orders>. The detected Record path is export/orders/order; a nested <customer><name> arrives as the column customer.name.

More in Files

• CSV Reader — Reads a CSV or other delimited text file, such as a TSV. Column types are detected for you, and you can override them or read every column as text.
• Fixed-width Reader — Reads a text file whose columns sit at fixed character positions, such as a mainframe export or a legacy feed, slicing each line at the positions you set on a ruler over the file's first lines. Header row, start line, encoding and row limit work as in the CSV Reader.
• JSON Reader — Reads a .json, .jsonl or .ndjson file as a table. A JSON array of objects and one-object-per-line files are both detected automatically.
• Parquet Reader — Reads a Parquet file and keeps the column types stored in it.
• Excel Reader — Reads one worksheet of an Excel workbook, the first sheet unless you pick another.
• Geo Reader — Reads a map file with its geometry: GeoJSON, Shapefile (also zipped), GeoPackage, GML, KML/KMZ, GPX, FlatGeobuf or MapInfo TAB. For a file with several layers, you pick which layer to read.
• SQLite Reader — Reads one table from a local SQLite database file (.sqlite, .sqlite3 or .db). You pick the table from the file's list of tables.
• Daedalus Table Reader — Reads a .ddtable file saved by Write Daedalus Table, in this project or another one. The column formats come back too, so everything prints as it did.