[ANNC] XML-Spreadsheets of UBL v2.0 - Getting The Most Out Of UBLv2.0 Models

[Chin Chee-Kai <cheekai@softml.net>]

*2008 Sep 18*

XML-Spreadsheets for UBL v2.0's entire set of model spreadsheets are now 
available.

XML-Spreadsheets contain the same content as the spreadsheets but stored 
in XML form.  This facilitates use of other power XML tools and 
transformation engines such as XSL/XSLT, XML processors, browsers, AJAX, 
applets, etc to extract more value out of the spreadsheet content.

The format attempts to facilitate easy reference, processing and 
self-documentation.    The primary objective of XML-Spreadsheet is to 
preserve the content and structure of the source spreadsheet so that 
processing XML-spreadsheets is as near as possible to actually using 
original spreadsheet.

The format used in XML-Spreadsheets is extremely simple:

    <Sheet>

    <Information>...</Information>

    <Row rowIndex="1">

    <Column rowIndex="1" columnIndex="1" columnLabel="Label A">...</Column>

    <Column rowIndex="1" columnIndex="2" columnLabel="Label B">...</Column>

         ......

    </Row> <Row rowIndex="2">...</Row>

       ...

    <Row rowIndex="999">...</Row>

    </Sheet>

This is generated by UBLish v2.0.0.kpo which is currently being packaged 
for early alpha release.  The alpha release would allow users to 
transform arbitrary spreadsheet file, or directory of spreadsheet files, 
directly into XML-spreadsheets.   Being multi-lingual-capable, UBLish 
v2.0.0.kpo will be able to extract localized spreadsheets from the 
various languages into which UBL was translated.  By storing these as 
XML format, the translation efforts would be able to be used in many 
more application areas and processing systems which have difficulty 
accessing original spreadsheets.

    * Possible uses of XML-Spreadsheets are:
    * Transform XML-Spreadsheets into schema
    * "Pretty-printing" UBL data models
    * Editing the models with your favorite XML editor
    * Check for potential errors which are more visible in XML form
    * Feeding into other XML tools, utilities, processors (now and in
      future) to extract more usage of model information
    * Others

Comments, feedbacks, suggestions, bugs, etc are all welcome!

Chin Chee-Kai

UBLish Project Site (Download):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ublish

UBLish Web Site:
http://ublish.sourceforge.net/

UBLish Forum (SourceForge users only):
https://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=863486

Kopio Project Site:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kopio