XiT Transformation Engine

Description

XiT Transformation Engine is a framework for managing data transformations. The engine was designed to help organize my transformation projects. See the modules for the actual work performed.

Configuration

Transformations can be run using the built-in task: xml2bean OR from the task  xit which uses a seperate property file.
Place your xml files in your "input" directory, configure your properties, and run ant.

Quick Start

Running the test

• download and unzip
• modify ~/xit/build.properties OR
• modify ~/xit/etc/projects/pojo.properties  
• run ant:  a help menu will appear showing the command syntax
• run: ant xml2bean OR
• run: ant xit -Df=etc/projects/pojo.properties
• check for output in ~/xit/work/pojo/output

Run your own

• Choose a module to do your transformation. (xml2bean)
• Create the input files (xml documents)
• Create a configuration file
• Run Ant to generate the output. 

How the engine works

The engine is a pipeline consisting of three components: An input connector,  engine adapters, and an output connector. Data manipulation can occur in all three layers.

Input Connectors

Connectors read and write data from datasources. This could be a file system, a database repository, or a remote url like an ftp site. Connectors currently in use:

• XmlConnector reads an xml document into a DOM document, and writes a DOM document back to xml text. The XmlConnector is used in conjunction with the Xslt adapter.
• Xml2BeanConnector is an extension of the XmlConnector and uses the xml document to load the XBean object model, which is used by the VelocityAdapter to produce source code.
• NullConnector is an empty connector that serves as a placeholder.

For more information see the component list.

Engine

The engine uses adapters that manipulate, transform  or otherwise process your data. Below are the adapters currently in use:

• Velocity adapter merges an object model with a template to create some form of text output.
• Xslt adapter performs transformations on xml documents.

For more information see the component list.

Modules

Modules perform a piece of work. They consist of connectors, adapters and configuration information. There are currently two modules:

• Xml2Bean module uses the XBeanConnector and the Velocity adapter to generate source code. Currently this module only creates Java source code, but it could easily be adapted to generate any type of component like code. It provides its own object model.
• Xslt module uses the XmlConnector and the Xslt adapter to perform Xsl transformations. This is a single file to single file adapter.

Module Configuration

Below is the configuration file to run a transformation with the VelocityAdapter.

It uses the typebean.xml as input, and the Xml2BeanConnector to load the xml document into the adapter.

The adapter uses the pojo template. Output will be placed in the output directory by the adapter

The ouput connector is the NullConnector, because it doesn't do any work.

Requirements

Xit uses the following libraries, which are included in the distribution:

• Velocity
• Ant
• dom4j
• JUnit
• JDBC driver

License

XiT is open source and released under the GNU GPL This software does not come with a warranty of any kind. Use at your own risk. You may modify and distribute the code as you wish, as long as you provide the source code and this copyright with it. The source code that is generated using this tool is your own and not subject to GPL.

Tools

A plug for my favorite GUI:

• JPad Pro

Author

XiT was designed and written by Brad Matlack. 

Contributions

Thanks to Frot for work on the Xml2Bean Task:   frot@chello.at