Learning transformation by example

[Marc Mason]

Does anyone know of software that can learn a transformation of XML to
another XML format or a text format without having to write XSLT
code? For example, I'd like to be able to provide the software with
examples of my input XML like:

<concept type="a" value="aValue" id="a1"/>
<concept type="b" value="bValue" id="b1"/>
<relationship type="c" fromId="a1" toId="b1"/>

and give it examples of the output I'd like to get, like:

(a a1)
(name a1 aValue)
(b b1)
(name b1 bValue)
(c a1 b1)

and have the software automatically produce the XSLT to do this
transformation or code to do the transformation.

I realize that this is a simple example and the XSLT wouldn't be too
hard to write by hand, but in general, I'd say XSLT is difficult to
write and it would be nice if there were software like this to make
things easier.

Thanks,
Marc Mason

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[Clif Davis]

Unless you have lots of new conversion types constantly and can
tolerate a certain number of errors, machine learning is probably not
the way to go. OTOH if you can use fixed variables for your examples
and the syntax is limited, you probably have a fairly small LISP or
PROLOG program that could do a respectable job and be written by any
CS grad student. But a nice visual interface would probably still be
easier to use.

Take a look at:
http://www.altova.com/download-convert-xml.html?gclid=CKLS7Pn9vJ4CFREhDQodQnJ0lA
http://www.adeptia.com/products/data_transformation.html?gclid=CM6Vif3-vJ4CFRAeDQodUkWAmQ
http://www.stylusstudio.com/convert_to_xml.html?gclid=CI67kJT_vJ4CFRQeDQod8x-EnQ
http://www.xml.com/pub/p/604
and see if one of them is a good fit for you.

Clif Davis

[Erik Max Francis]

It's unlikely you're going to find something to do this transformation
specifically, and trying to take some kind of learning system and train
it to do so would be far more difficult than just doing the
transformation itself. You don't even need to you use XSLT; just use a
simple XML parser and pick out what you want. If the pattern is
_really_ this trivial, then you could even cheat and use regular
expressions.

--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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