CODEWITHSUNDEEP
filemaker
Jack James
Jack James

Reputation: 5372

In Filemaker, is it possible to import into Container fields from XML?

The XML FMPXMLRESULT grammar documentation states:

XML export does not support exporting container field data.

which seems to imply that it's possible to import (it does also specify that you can denote a field as type "CONTAINER" in the XML). However, I have found zero documentation as to how this might be done.

Is it possible? I get that there are ways of getting e.g. an image file into Filemaker after the fact, but can I just specify it in the XML beforehand, negating the need to have additional scripts or post-processing the import (not to mention something that works in Filemaker 11 or below)?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1658

Answers (3)

Mikhail Edoshin
Mikhail Edoshin

Reputation: 2669

You can import file references, but not binary data. (And you'll have to specify the field as TEXT type in the XML file.) For example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<FMPXMLRESULT xmlns="http://www.filemaker.com/fmpxmlresult">
  <ERRORCODE>0</ERRORCODE>
  <PRODUCT BUILD="01-25-2011" NAME="FileMaker" 
      VERSION="ProAdvanced 11.0v3" />
  <DATABASE DATEFORMAT="M/d/yyyy" TIMEFORMAT="h:mm:ss a" 
      LAYOUT="" NAME="" RECORDS="" />
  <METADATA>
    <FIELD EMPTYOK="YES" MAXREPEAT="1" TYPE="TEXT" NAME="Path" />
  </METADATA>
  <RESULTSET FOUND="">
    <ROW>
      <COL>
        <DATA>image:test.jpg</DATA>
      </COL>
    </ROW>
  </RESULTSET>
</FMPXMLRESULT>

The path must be in FileMaker format; here I used a relative path to test.jpg in the same directory as the file (will only work for local files), but it can also be an absolute path, e.g.:

imagewin:/C:/Some/Path/test.jpg

Upvotes: 1

michael.hor257k
michael.hor257k

Reputation: 117102

importing images, preferably from http

I am not sure what exactly that means. If your XML contains a link to an image, then the only thing you can do with it is import the link as text. If you are using version 12 or higher, you can follow this with the Insert From URL script step (for each imported record).

Upvotes: 0

Sam Barnum
Sam Barnum

Reputation: 10734

Your best option is probably to import Base64-encoded data, then use the Base64Decode function to decode it.

Upvotes: 0

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