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Ceri Binding edited this page Oct 11, 2019 · 44 revisions

Using STELETO

STELETO is a simple cross-platform command line application to convert textual input data into other textual formats, via a custom template. It takes either a delimited text or JSON formatted data file as input, applies the specified template and creates a text file as output. STELETO uses the DotLiquid templating engine, so for further details of the template syntax to use refer to http://dotliquidmarkup.org/. STELETO passes two objects into the template:

  • 'data' contains the data read from the input data file
  • 'options' contains any additional data items passed in via the -p parameter (see below)

Example usage 1

Some example comma-delimited text input data (save as 'c:\path\to\mydata.csv'):

ref,name,qty  
A1234,apples,5127   
A2345,bananas,235   
A3456,pears,8756

OR - JSON format input data (save as 'c:\path\to\myinputdata.json'):

[
   {
      "ref":"A1234", 
      "name": "apples", 
      "qty": 5127
   },
   {
      "ref":"A2345", 
      "name": "bananas", 
      "qty": 235
   },
   {
      "ref":"A3456", 
      "name": "pears", 
      "qty": 8756
   }
]

An example template to be applied to each record in the input data (save as 'c:\path\to\data2text.liquid':

{%- for row in data -%}
Reference   : {{ row.ref }}  
Description : {{ row.name }} [{{ row.qty }}]    
{%- endfor -%}

Windows batch command to perform the conversion:

cd \path\to\steleto  
STELETO -i:"c:\path\to\mydata.csv" -o:"c:\path\to\output.txt" -t:"c:\path\to\data2text.liquid" -h -d:,

Contents of the resultant output file (c:\path\to\output.txt):

Reference   : A1234   
Description : apples [5127]  

Reference   : A2345    
Description : bananas [235]    

Reference   : A3456    
Description : pears [8756]

Command line options

The STELETO command line options may be present in any order, and may be expressed in a number of ways: (STELETO -? for help):

-i|input [required] - the name of the input data file (including path)
-o|output [required] - the name of the output data file (including path)
-t|template [required] - the name of the DotLiquid template file (including path)
-d|delimiter [optional] - the delimiter character used in the input data file, if applicable  (default is tab delimited)
-p|param [optional] - named parameters, passed through to the template file as 'options.name' (usage -p:name:value e.g. -p:age:"42")
-h|header [optional] - presence indicates the first line of the input data file is a header row containing field names
-w|wait [optional] - by default the console would close after processing, this pauses so you can review the output
-?|help - show all available command line options

Note: if your input data file is delimited text but does not have a header row containing field names, STELETO will produce default numbered field names of 'field1', 'field2', 'field3' etc. to identify the fields for use in the template

Example usage 2

Now an alternative template, to create XML from the same input data (save as 'c:\path\to\data2xml.liquid'):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>  
<items>  
{%- for row in data -%}
   <item rdf:about="{{ options.uri }}{{ row.ref }}">  
      <description>{{ row.name }}</description>  
      <quantity>{{ row.qty} }</quantity>  
   </item>  
{%- endfor -%}
</items>

Windows command to perform the conversion:
STELETO -i:"c:\path\to\mydata.csv" -o:"c:\path\to\output.xml" -t:"c:\path\to\data2xml.liquid" -h -d:, -p:uri:"http://temp1/"

Contents of the resultant output file (c:\path\to\output.xml):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<items>  
   <item rdf:about="http://temp1/A1234">  
      <description>apples</description>  
      <quantity>5127</quantity>  
   </item>  
   <item rdf:about="http://temp1/A2345">  
      <description>bananas</description>  
      <quantity>235</quantity>  
   </item>  
   <item rdf:about="http://temp1/A3456">  
      <description>pears</description>  
      <quantity>8756</quantity>  
   </item>  
</items>

Running STELETO on Linux

Not extensively tested, but the existing compiled executable STELETO.exe will also run on LINUX (using the mono platform) without requiring recompilation. To test this we created a UBUNTU blank workspace on Cloud9 (see http://c9.io/). We installed the mono platform using the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mono-complete

We then uploaded the STELETO /bin/Release directory and the data file and the two .liquid templates from the earlier examples, navigated to the directory containing the data file and templates, and typed the following commands:

$ mono ./bin/Release/STELETO.exe -i:"mydata.csv" -o:"output.txt" -t:"data2text.liquid" -h -d:"," 

STELETO v2.0
Convert 'mydata.csv' with template 'data2text.liquid'
3 rows converted [time taken: 00:00:00.178]

$ mono ./bin/Release/STELETO.exe -i:"mydata.csv" -o:"output.xml" -t:"data2xml.liquid" -h -d:"," -p:uri:"http://temp1/"
     
STELETO v2.0 
Convert 'mydata.csv' with template 'data2xml.liquid'
3 rows converted [time taken: 00:00:00.311]

The two output files were created successfully as documented in the earlier examples

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