I'd like to thank everyone for their words of encouragement. I've been asked for some practical examples of how my program can be used. One obvious use is for data transmission in the most efficient way since all that's in the CSV are the data labels and values; all the XML tags are stripped out and no XSL is need. That means a 3KB data file vs. an 67KB XML and 19KB XSL, a size reduction of about 97% before compression.
What else can you do once you have the CSV? Well, one thing is to write another script (macro) that consumes the CSV and exports any selected data values to a database table. There are a number of ways to do this, but one is to locate each data element via a search routine, defining the found data value as a variable, then used that variable in an SQL query that exports the value to a table. Note that I'm responding to Stuart questions in a separate post. Steve --- In openhealth@yahoogroups.com, "Stephen Beller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I've had lengthy, and sometimes heated, debates with leaders of the open > source community about the value of having both FOSS and proprietary > software systems. I made the case that inventors who hold patents for > truly original and useful breakthrough software programs—and who are > compassionate, empathetic, socially-minded individuals—should not be > lumped together with people who receive software dubious patents for > insignificant inventions. These latter inventors sole purpose is to > enrich themselves by "holding other developers hostage" and constraining > them from creating health information technology programs that could > have great benefit for the greater good. And I fully support FOSS for > taking a hard-line stand against such practices! > > I made the case, therefore, that FOSS programs, and proprietary programs > offered by decent inventors, can live together peacefully for everyone's > benefit. > > I now want to announce that I've just offered a CCD (continuity of care > document) data conversion program under a FOSS license. For anyone > interested, it's located at this link: > http://opensourceandpatents.blogspot.com/2008/11/first-open-source-offer\ \ > ing-xml-to-csv.html > <http://opensourceandpatents.blogspot.com/2008/11/first-open-source-offe\ \ > ring-xml-to-csv.html> > > Steve > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
