   Any2XML Developer Edition - Any2XML Template Construction Instructions

Any2XML template construction requires, as a minimum, a knowledge of regular
expressions. Anyone with this knowledge can learn to construct template within
a few hours. Anyone with some experience in Perl can easily extend the
templates to create powerful translation and extraction engines. By combining 
other programs or embedding Any2XML, data from different sources can be 
dynamically acquired, processed and dispatched.  Visit the support pages
<http://goreliance.com> to get up-to-date information, ideas and documentation.
If you like what it can do but would rather get the work done, please contact
us. 
  
        
The regular expressions strictly follow Perl's regular expressions engine. The 
following assumes a knowledge of regular expressions. 

Template Structure

An2XML template structure mirrors the desired XML structure. At each level, you 
specify the tag, attributes and instructions on when and how to create them. 
        
You need to supply the XML header tag with any info and DTD if required. You
can specify HTML style comments anywhere. Any processing instructions will be
passed through by Any2XML.
  
Comments

  XML comments are enclosed within <!-- da da da -->
  Regular expression comments using the 'x' switch like (?# this is a comment)
  Perl comments, which you can use within _set and _set_xxxx directives

Anywhere in the template you can specify an attribute with a prefix '_' (but 
not colliding with _set, _match, _exp and _fill) and set a value. Any2XML
ignores these attributes. See the date element below for an example.

I urge you to use comments and the 'x' switch to break up the regular 
expression wherever you can so you can understand your own templates later, 
let alone others! 
