XML2R (version 0.0.6)

XML2Obs: Parse XML files into a list of "observations"

Description

This function takes a collection of urls that point to XML files and coerces the relevant info into a list of observations. An "observation" is defined as a matrix with one row. An observation can also be thought of as a single instance of XML attributes (and value) for a particular level in the XML hierarchy. The names of the list reflect the XML node ancestory for which each observation was extracted from.

Usage

XML2Obs(urls, xpath, append.value = TRUE, as.equiv = TRUE, url.map = FALSE, async = FALSE, quiet = FALSE)

Arguments

urls

character vector or list of urls that point to an XML file (or anything readable by xmlParse).

xpath

XML XPath expression that is passed to getNodeSet. If missing, the entire root and all descendents are captured and returned (ie, tables = "/").

append.value

logical. Should the XML value be appended for relevant observations?

as.equiv

logical. Should observations from two different files (but the same ancestory) have the same name returned?

url.map

logical. If TRUE, the 'url_key' column will contain a condensed url identifier (for each observation) and full urls will be stored in the "url_map" element. If FALSE, the full urls are included (for each observation) as a 'url' column and no "url_map" is included.

async

logical. Allows for asynchronous download requests. This option is passed to the async option in the RCurl::getURL function.

quiet

logical. Print file name currently being parsed?

Value

A list of "observations" and (possibly) the "url_map" element.

Details

It's worth noting that a "url_key" column is appended to each observation to help track the origin of each observation. The value of the "url_key" column is not the actual file name, but a simplified identifier to avoid unnecessarily repeating long file names for each observation. For this reason, an addition element (named "url_map") is added to the list of observations in case the actual file named want to be used.

See Also

urlsToDocs, docsToNodes, nodesToList, listsToObs

Examples

## Not run: 
# urls <- c("http://gd2.mlb.com/components/game/mlb/year_2013/mobile/346180.xml",
#            "http://gd2.mlb.com/components/game/mlb/year_2013/mobile/346188.xml")
# obs <- XML2Obs(urls)
# table(names(obs))
# ## End(Not run)