Gedcom to XML converter Please?

[Adrian Mullins]

Hi

I keep all my records in an access database which I designed myself. I have
made it so it exports into GEDCOM format. When I want to update my webpage
I have many places where I must change. It would be really good if there
were a GEDCOM to XML (the future of GEDCOM?) converter.

I have joined a newsgroup discussing it but all that seems to happen is that
keep discussing and no one moves forward. I beleive the group has been
going for about 3 years.

In the meantime I just want a simple solution that allows me to suck in
GEDCOM and export XML pages.

Is there anyone out there who can help

thanks

adrian mullins

[Robyn]

Adrian Mullins wrote:

Hi

I keep all my records in an access database which I designed myself. I have
made it so it exports into GEDCOM format. When I want to update my webpage
I have many places where I must change. It would be really good if there
were a GEDCOM to XML (the future of GEDCOM?) converter.

I have joined a newsgroup discussing it but all that seems to happen is that
keep discussing and no one moves forward. I beleive the group has been
going for about 3 years.

In the meantime I just want a simple solution that allows me to suck in
GEDCOM and export XML pages.

Is there anyone out there who can help

thanks

adrian mullins


Is your database set up in such a way that you could convert a table or

report to XML? If so, Access 2003 (I'm not sure about Access 2002) will
do this reasonably well.
Robyn

[Adrian Mullins]

Robyn

The problem is that I dont know how to convert to XML. My dayabase is
converted into access 2003 so I assume it would cope. Can you let me know
to go about it please

Thanks for your help

adrian
"Robyn" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Adrian Mullins wrote:
Hi

I keep all my records in an access database which I designed myself. I
have made it so it exports into GEDCOM format. When I want to update my
webpage I have many places where I must change. It would be really good
if there were a GEDCOM to XML (the future of GEDCOM?) converter.

I have joined a newsgroup discussing it but all that seems to happen is
that keep discussing and no one moves forward. I beleive the group has
been going for about 3 years.

In the meantime I just want a simple solution that allows me to suck in
GEDCOM and export XML pages.

Is there anyone out there who can help

thanks

adrian mullins
Is your database set up in such a way that you could convert a table or
report to XML? If so, Access 2003 (I'm not sure about Access 2002) will
do this reasonably well.
Robyn

[Robyn]

Adrian Mullins wrote:

Robyn

The problem is that I dont know how to convert to XML. My dayabase is
converted into access 2003 so I assume it would cope. Can you let me know
to go about it please

Thanks for your help

Hi Adrian,
It depends what format you want to export in, ie table, query or report
format. I would suggest you set up a report in the style you want to
present the data (report can be based on the table or query you need)
then in the Database window, click the name of the table, query, or
report that you want to export, and then click File > Export.
Click the Save as type down arrow and select *.xml.
Key in a name for the file, and then click Export.
In the Export XML dialog box, do one or more of the following:
To export the data to an XML document, select Data (XML).
To export the schema to an XML file, select Schema of the data.
If you want Access to create an HTML page you need to check
"Presentation of your data (XSL)" in the options box, Access then
creates an HTML file that uses an Extensible Style Language file.
I suggest you have a look in the Help files (just type XML in the little
help box at top right of the Access window).

Hope this helps, I have not used this feature extensively, just gone
through the basics with a student so I'm not an expert on the subject.
--
Robyn in Hawke's Bay Wine Country, New Zealand

[email protected]

Genealogy website http://www.gennz.com/
Family Pages http://www.gennz.com/family/
Indexed Family Tree http://www.gennz.com/family/tree/index.html

Researching in England: WARD, ERVING, HALLETT, CARBIS, BOWER
Scotland: GORDON, MUNRO

[Adrian Mullins]

Robyn

Thanks for the info. I will try and see what results I get

Thanks again for your time

adrian


"Robyn" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Adrian Mullins wrote:
Robyn

The problem is that I dont know how to convert to XML. My dayabase is
converted into access 2003 so I assume it would cope. Can you let me
know to go about it please

Thanks for your help


Hi Adrian,
It depends what format you want to export in, ie table, query or report
format. I would suggest you set up a report in the style you want to
present the data (report can be based on the table or query you need) then
in the Database window, click the name of the table, query, or report that
you want to export, and then click File > Export.
Click the Save as type down arrow and select *.xml.
Key in a name for the file, and then click Export.
In the Export XML dialog box, do one or more of the following:
To export the data to an XML document, select Data (XML).
To export the schema to an XML file, select Schema of the data.
If you want Access to create an HTML page you need to check "Presentation
of your data (XSL)" in the options box, Access then creates an HTML file
that uses an Extensible Style Language file.
I suggest you have a look in the Help files (just type XML in the little
help box at top right of the Access window).

Hope this helps, I have not used this feature extensively, just gone
through the basics with a student so I'm not an expert on the subject.
--
Robyn in Hawke's Bay Wine Country, New Zealand

[email protected]

Genealogy website http://www.gennz.com/
Family Pages http://www.gennz.com/family/ Indexed Family Tree
http://www.gennz.com/family/tree/index.html

Researching in England: WARD, ERVING, HALLETT, CARBIS, BOWER
Scotland: GORDON, MUNRO

[Kerry Raymond]

I keep all my records in an access database which I designed myself. I
have
made it so it exports into GEDCOM format. When I want to update my
webpage I have many places where I must change. It would be really good
if there were a GEDCOM to XML (the future of GEDCOM?) converter.

It's not just a question of whether you can create XML, but whether you can
create the XML necessary to your purpose. This usually means conforming to
some DTD or Schema that dictates the tags etc to be used. Just because a
program can export to XML, it does not follow that this is XML conforming to
the DTD/Schema you need. By analogy, GEDCOM is a text file, but not all text
files are GEDCOM files.

Some years ago, I wrote a ged to xml converter (using some combination of
awk and sed if I remember correctly) based on a a GED DTD that I think I
part-borrowed and part-wrote myself. As a technical problem, it really isn't
that difficult to come up with a DTD/Schema for GED and it's not really that
difficult to write a converter. The problem here isn't really a technical
problem, but more a socio-economic problem.

The real issue is whether there is likely to be a GED DTD/Schema that has
widespread acceptance, which means endorsed by people like the LDS and used
as the basis of XML export by family history software so that it becomes a
standard. If that happened, I think there would soon be a number of
XML-based tools developed to do useful and interesting things with GED-XML
files.

In a lot of other areas, XML has really opened up interoperability and the
development of associated tool suites, and it would seem that family history
could enjoy similar benefits. However, for family history, GEDCOM already
existed prior to XML which means there is already a considerable investment
made in supporting GED in existing software which probably reduces the
enthusiasm of many of the players to introduce another interchange format
based on XML. Realistically, family history software would have to support
both the older GEDCOM format as well as the new XML format for a number of
years, for backwards compatibility.

And, of course, there is the old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
GEDCOM might not be perfect but a lot of data has been successfully
interchanged with it. Indeed, it's worth asking "what's actually wrong with
GEDCOM?". And to be fair to GEDCOM, it has a reasonably good data model, but
its weakness is its awkward syntax which just doesn't really conform to
anything else on the planet stylistically (CONC and CONT, ugh!), which means
that you can't easily repurpose/reuse other tools but must specially
handwrite every tool which works with GEDCOM. If XML were to replace the
GEDCOM syntax, it would be sensible to retain the data model (as that
incorporates the wisdom of many years of development and eases the migration
path).

Anyhow that's my 10c on the subject of GEDCOM to XML.

Kerry

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:25:28 +1000, "Kerry Raymond" <[email protected]>
declaimed the following in soc.genealogy.computing:

I keep all my records in an access database which I designed myself. I
have
made it so it exports into GEDCOM format. When I want to update my
webpage I have many places where I must change. It would be really good
if there were a GEDCOM to XML (the future of GEDCOM?) converter.

It would be better to go direct from the JET database (Access is

just a GUI-builder/Report-writer for the JET database engine) to XML
without passing through the inherent flaws of GEDCOM.

It's not just a question of whether you can create XML, but whether you can
create the XML necessary to your purpose. This usually means conforming to
some DTD or Schema that dictates the tags etc to be used. Just because a
program can export to XML, it does not follow that this is XML conforming to
the DTD/Schema you need. By analogy, GEDCOM is a text file, but not all text
files are GEDCOM files.

<snip

The real issue is whether there is likely to be a GED DTD/Schema that has
widespread acceptance, which means endorsed by people like the LDS and used
as the basis of XML export by family history software so that it becomes a
standard. If that happened, I think there would soon be a number of
XML-based tools developed to do useful and interesting things with GED-XML
files.

The stale draft from the LDS for GEDCOM v6 can be found at

http://www.familysearch.org/GEDCOM/GedXML60.pdf

Unfortunately, when I last looked at this document, it was still
heavily biased toward "family" oriented genealogy data -- as with the
existing GEDCOM -- making it miserable to fit "event" oriented into it
(IE, the late UFT, and still extant TMG).

A general smattering of the subject:
http://biographiks.com/pleasant/gedcom-xml.htm

--

==============================================================
[email protected] | Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG
[email protected] | Bestiaria Support Staff
==============================================================
Home Page: <http://www.dm.net/~wulfraed/
Overflow Page: <http://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

[Bob Melson]

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:25:28 +1000, Kerry Raymond wrote:

snip
It's not just a question of whether you can create XML, but whether you
can create the XML necessary to your purpose. This usually means
conforming to some DTD or Schema that dictates the tags etc to be used.
Just because a program can export to XML, it does not follow that this is
XML conforming to the DTD/Schema you need. By analogy, GEDCOM is a text
file, but not all text files are GEDCOM files.

snip
The real issue is whether there is likely to be a GED DTD/Schema that has
widespread acceptance, which means endorsed by people like the LDS and
used as the basis of XML export by family history software so that it
becomes a standard. If that happened, I think there would soon be a number
of XML-based tools developed to do useful and interesting things with
GED-XML files.

In a lot of other areas, XML has really opened up interoperability and the
development of associated tool suites, and it would seem that family
history could enjoy similar benefits. However, for family history, GEDCOM
already existed prior to XML which means there is already a considerable
investment made in supporting GED in existing software which probably
reduces the enthusiasm of many of the players to introduce another
interchange format based on XML. Realistically, family history software
would have to support both the older GEDCOM format as well as the new XML
format for a number of years, for backwards compatibility.

And, of course, there is the old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix
it". GEDCOM might not be perfect but a lot of data has been successfully
interchanged with it. Indeed, it's worth asking "what's actually wrong
with GEDCOM?". And to be fair to GEDCOM, it has a reasonably good data
model, but its weakness is its awkward syntax which just doesn't really
conform to anything else on the planet stylistically (CONC and CONT,
ugh!), which means that you can't easily repurpose/reuse other tools but
must specially handwrite every tool which works with GEDCOM. If XML were
to replace the GEDCOM syntax, it would be sensible to retain the data
model (as that incorporates the wisdom of many years of development and
eases the migration path).

Anyhow that's my 10c on the subject of GEDCOM to XML.

Kerry

Good points. I'd point out, however, that the LDS is working on a gedcom
v.6 specification and, wouldja believe, it seems to be going to XML. That
doesn't mean anything, of course, in the absence of a DTD/Schema, but they
can't be far behind, once the spec is released.

In the same vein, if you're a programmer/hacker/perl monger, they you need
to look into the gedcom module for perl (it's a version 1.14 now, I
think). Most of it is just playing around with the common, garden variety
gedcom file, but it has a nice ged->xml converter function that, even
granting there's no standard to which it must comply, turns out meaningful
and useful xml "code".

Bob Melson


--
Robert G. Melson | Nothing is more terrible than
Rio Grande MicroSolutions | ignorance in action.
El Paso, Texas | Goethe
melsonr(at)earthlink(dot)net

[Robyn]

In answer to Kerry Raymond:

I keep all my records in an access database which I designed myself. I
have made it so it exports into GEDCOM format. When I want to update my
webpage I have many places where I must change. It would be really good
if there were a GEDCOM to XML (the future of GEDCOM?) converter.

Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
It would be better to go direct from the JET database (Access is
just a GUI-builder/Report-writer for the JET database engine) to XML
without passing through the inherent flaws of GEDCOM.

A general smattering of the subject:
http://biographiks.com/pleasant/gedcom-xml.htm

I agree with Dennis, why go to the trouble of converting a file from
Access to GEDCOM and then to XML when Access (2002 and 2003) has all the
tools to convert directly. It will probably be years before there is a
generally accepted schema, and even then a large percentage of genealogy
software users will posess neither the skills nor the inclination to
embrace the technology.

Robyn in Hawke's Bay Wine Country, New Zealand

[email protected]

Genealogy website http://www.gennz.com/
Family Pages http://www.gennz.com/family/
Indexed Family Tree http://www.gennz.com/family/tree/index.html

Researching in England: WARD, ERVING, HALLETT, CARBIS, BOWER
Scotland: GORDON, MUNRO

[Hugh Watkins]

"Robyn" <""robynREMOVETHIS\"@gennz .com"> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

In answer to Kerry Raymond:
I keep all my records in an access database which I designed myself. I
have made it so it exports into GEDCOM format. When I want to update my
webpage I have many places where I must change. It would be really good
if there were a GEDCOM to XML (the future of GEDCOM?) converter.

Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
It would be better to go direct from the JET database (Access is
just a GUI-builder/Report-writer for the JET database engine) to XML
without passing through the inherent flaws of GEDCOM.

A general smattering of the subject:
http://biographiks.com/pleasant/gedcom-xml.htm


I agree with Dennis, why go to the trouble of converting a file from
Access to GEDCOM and then to XML when Access (2002 and 2003) has all the
tools to convert directly. It will probably be years before there is a
generally accepted schema, and even then a large percentage of genealogy
software users will posess neither the skills nor the inclination to
embrace the technology.

I will
but I demand a graphical user interface

Hugh W

[singhals]

Robyn wrote:

generally accepted schema, and even then a large percentage of genealogy
software users will posess neither the skills nor the inclination to
embrace the technology.

And bless your heart for saying so! There does come a time when you get
a little tired of having to learn something new before you're
half-through converting to the previous new from the new before that.
It might be nice to have things stable a year or two so we could all do
some research instead of data maintance. (g)

Cheryl (mainframes to CP/M to ...)

[Adrian Mullins]

Wow Kerry - that was amouthful but I understand where you are coming from.
Thanks for your input

adrian


"Kerry Raymond" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

I keep all my records in an access database which I designed myself. I
have
made it so it exports into GEDCOM format. When I want to update my
webpage I have many places where I must change. It would be really good
if there were a GEDCOM to XML (the future of GEDCOM?) converter.

It's not just a question of whether you can create XML, but whether you
can create the XML necessary to your purpose. This usually means
conforming to some DTD or Schema that dictates the tags etc to be used.
Just because a program can export to XML, it does not follow that this is
XML conforming to the DTD/Schema you need. By analogy, GEDCOM is a text
file, but not all text files are GEDCOM files.

Some years ago, I wrote a ged to xml converter (using some combination of
awk and sed if I remember correctly) based on a a GED DTD that I think I
part-borrowed and part-wrote myself. As a technical problem, it really
isn't that difficult to come up with a DTD/Schema for GED and it's not
really that difficult to write a converter. The problem here isn't really
a technical problem, but more a socio-economic problem.

The real issue is whether there is likely to be a GED DTD/Schema that has
widespread acceptance, which means endorsed by people like the LDS and
used as the basis of XML export by family history software so that it
becomes a standard. If that happened, I think there would soon be a number
of XML-based tools developed to do useful and interesting things with
GED-XML files.

In a lot of other areas, XML has really opened up interoperability and the
development of associated tool suites, and it would seem that family
history could enjoy similar benefits. However, for family history, GEDCOM
already existed prior to XML which means there is already a considerable
investment made in supporting GED in existing software which probably
reduces the enthusiasm of many of the players to introduce another
interchange format based on XML. Realistically, family history software
would have to support both the older GEDCOM format as well as the new XML
format for a number of years, for backwards compatibility.

And, of course, there is the old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix
it". GEDCOM might not be perfect but a lot of data has been successfully
interchanged with it. Indeed, it's worth asking "what's actually wrong
with GEDCOM?". And to be fair to GEDCOM, it has a reasonably good data
model, but its weakness is its awkward syntax which just doesn't really
conform to anything else on the planet stylistically (CONC and CONT,
ugh!), which means that you can't easily repurpose/reuse other tools but
must specially handwrite every tool which works with GEDCOM. If XML were
to replace the GEDCOM syntax, it would be sensible to retain the data
model (as that incorporates the wisdom of many years of development and
eases the migration path).

Anyhow that's my 10c on the subject of GEDCOM to XML.

Kerry

[Adrian Mullins]

Wow - I seem to have stirred up some very deep thoughts on this subject.
Thanks for all your help. I will have to sit and think which way to go next

adrian



"Kerry Raymond" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

I keep all my records in an access database which I designed myself. I
have
made it so it exports into GEDCOM format. When I want to update my
webpage I have many places where I must change. It would be really good
if there were a GEDCOM to XML (the future of GEDCOM?) converter.

It's not just a question of whether you can create XML, but whether you
can create the XML necessary to your purpose. This usually means
conforming to some DTD or Schema that dictates the tags etc to be used.
Just because a program can export to XML, it does not follow that this is
XML conforming to the DTD/Schema you need. By analogy, GEDCOM is a text
file, but not all text files are GEDCOM files.

Some years ago, I wrote a ged to xml converter (using some combination of
awk and sed if I remember correctly) based on a a GED DTD that I think I
part-borrowed and part-wrote myself. As a technical problem, it really
isn't that difficult to come up with a DTD/Schema for GED and it's not
really that difficult to write a converter. The problem here isn't really
a technical problem, but more a socio-economic problem.

The real issue is whether there is likely to be a GED DTD/Schema that has
widespread acceptance, which means endorsed by people like the LDS and
used as the basis of XML export by family history software so that it
becomes a standard. If that happened, I think there would soon be a number
of XML-based tools developed to do useful and interesting things with
GED-XML files.

In a lot of other areas, XML has really opened up interoperability and the
development of associated tool suites, and it would seem that family
history could enjoy similar benefits. However, for family history, GEDCOM
already existed prior to XML which means there is already a considerable
investment made in supporting GED in existing software which probably
reduces the enthusiasm of many of the players to introduce another
interchange format based on XML. Realistically, family history software
would have to support both the older GEDCOM format as well as the new XML
format for a number of years, for backwards compatibility.

And, of course, there is the old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix
it". GEDCOM might not be perfect but a lot of data has been successfully
interchanged with it. Indeed, it's worth asking "what's actually wrong
with GEDCOM?". And to be fair to GEDCOM, it has a reasonably good data
model, but its weakness is its awkward syntax which just doesn't really
conform to anything else on the planet stylistically (CONC and CONT,
ugh!), which means that you can't easily repurpose/reuse other tools but
must specially handwrite every tool which works with GEDCOM. If XML were
to replace the GEDCOM syntax, it would be sensible to retain the data
model (as that incorporates the wisdom of many years of development and
eases the migration path).

Anyhow that's my 10c on the subject of GEDCOM to XML.

Kerry