Retrieving property values from external files

The simplest way to format the file is to provide a simple list of values for the property, as in the following examples:

<company>
  <employee>Alice</employee>
  <employee>Bob</employee>
  <employee>Chris</employee>
<company>

For XML files, you use XPath to specify the path to the values. In the previous XML file, the Base Path parameter is the XPath expression //company/employee and parameters Value Path and Label Path are blank.

The following example shows the equivalent file in JSON:

{
  company: {
    employee: [
      "Alice",
      "Bob",
      "Chris"
    ]
  }
}

In the previous JSON file, the Base Path parameter is company.employee and parameters Value Path and Label Path are blank.

You can include separate label and value information in the file. For example, the following XML file includes names and ID numbers.

<company>
  <employee>
    <name>Alice</name>
    <id>1</id>
  </employee>
  <employee>
    <name>Bob</name>
    <id>2</id>
  </employee>
  <employee>
    <name>Chris</name>
    <id>3</id>
  </employee>
</company>

In this case, the Base Path parameter is the XPath expression //company/employee. The Value Path parameter is an XPath expression that shows the path to the value relative to the base path; in this case the expression is ./id. Similarly, the Label Path parameter an XPath expression that shows the path to the label relative to the base path; in this case the expression is ./name.

The following JSON file is equivalent to the previous XML file:

{
  company: {
    employees: [
      { name: "Alice", employee.id: 1 },
      { name: "Bob", employee.id: 2 },
      { name: "Chris", employee.id: 3}
    ]
  }
} 

In this case, the Base Path parameter is company.employees. The Value Path parameter is employee\.id and the Label Path parameter is name.

When you use attributes in an XML file, use the @ character to specify an attribute in XPath. For example, the following XML file has values in attributes:

<company>
  <employee id="1">Alice</employee>
  <employee id="2">Bob</employee>
  <employee id="3">Chris</employee>
<company>

In this case, the Base Path parameter is the XPath expression //company/employee. The Value Path parameter is ./@id and the Label Path parameter is a period (.).