>> Questions about Flow: XML -> Send to Friend

[Gene Ellis]

Hey everyone,

I have a simple task. I want to take an XML file, pull out the elements in it, format them, and then send an html email based on it. What are the necessary steps? Any suggestions? I know how to write XSL style sheets. Most of my confusion lays in how to get the XML elements for matted and the transformed in such a form that is email-able.
Thank you so much!

 

[Andrzej Adam Filip]

Hey everyone,

I have a simple task. I want to take an XML file, pull out the elements in it, format them, and then send an html email based on it. What are the necessary steps? Any suggestions? I know how to write XSL style sheets. Most of my confusion lays in how to get the XML elements for matted and the transformed in such a form that is email-able.
Thank you so much!

If you use unix/linux:
* Use xslt to convert the xml file to "hmtl file" (xml -> html) and "email headers file" (xml -> plain text). You can use two xsl files or xslt processor capable to produce more than one output file.
* Use the command below to send the files
( cat msg.hdr; echo ; cat msg.html) | sendmail -oi -t

-t - will make sendmail (or MTA pretending to be sendmail) to get recipient addresses from headers

Recomended headers in msg.hdr:
subject,from,to (OR cc OR bcc),
Content-Type (text/html),Content-Transfer-Encoding (8bit),MIME-Version (1.0).

 

[Malcolm Dew-Jones]

Gene Ellis wrote:
: Hey everyone,

I have a simple task. I want to take an XML file, pull out the elements in it, format them, and then send an html email based on it. What are the necessary steps? Any suggestions? I know how to write XSL style sheets. Most of my confusion lays in how to get the XML elements for matted and the transformed in such a form that is email-able.
Thank you so much!

This is a two step job.

First step is to create the text/plain and-or text/html sections. Ignore all issues of mail formatting at this stage. This is a standard xml/xsl process. Create the data as xml. Use xlst to pull out the things you want and format them the way they should eventually be seen. Save the result in one or more files (one file per format, e.g. if the mail should have a text/plain section and a text/html section then format then there will be two files produced).

Second step is to pack the files into a mail message. You could probably use a stylesheet for that, but why bother? Use a mail or mime tool to bundle the parts together. I have used perl MIME::Lite, but there are numerous other tools available.

 

[GIMME]

What operating system are you on and what tools are you wanting to use?

Why can't you do a transform and send a message formated in html (xhtml)?