Help creating XML documents

Hi there!

I wanted to ask for help to learn the basics of XML.

I need to deposit metadata related to 400 proceedings :disappointed_relieved: in the past I’ve done big deposits like this manually, but I’m pretty sure there’s a better way to do so!

I don’t know much about XML, but I believe I can learn it if I have the right resources :slightly_smiling_face:

My biggest doubt is how can I generate the XML documents with the right format.

Could someone help me with that or suggest some good resources to help me learn?

Thank you very much!

Kind regards,
Marina

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Hi @marina welcome to community platform.

I see that the best option for registering conferences is by Web Deposit Form, for those who do not master XML.

Let’s see if there are any more options. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Yeah, Web Deposit Form is nice, but to do 400 proceedings using this tool seems exhausting and time consuming… :sweat:

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Hi @marina ,

Thanks for your message, and welcome to the community forum. Yes, 400 conference papers would be a lot to key into the web deposit form, as @BrunaErlandsson points out. Generating your own XML would be preferable.

You can find XML examples for conference papers here: examples/conf_single_4.4.2.xml · master · crossref / Schema · GitLab (this example only includes one paper, but uses schema version 4.4.2) and here: Fast and accurate flow-insensitive points-to analysis (this example has more than one paper included in the example, but uses the 4.3.7 schema version).

Take a look at the XML examples and let us know if you have any questions about generating your own XML.

My best,
Isaac

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Thanks everyone for the answers!

And thanks Isaac, I’ll take a look into that! :grinning:

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Hi Isaac!

Is there any step-by-step website or video tutorial that explains how to create an XML file from the scratch?

Sorry if I sound very dumb… but I always had this doubt: is the XML generated from a .csv file, properly filled with all the important metadata?

If so, would be possible to find an example of this?

Or is it much more complex? :rofl:

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Hi Bruna,

We don’t have a tutorial like that. Generating XML is pretty complicated and typically requires some programming experience.

There isn’t any prefabricated script that will transform a csv file into valid Crossref xml. We experimented with building one some years ago, but it just produced too much data loss.

That said, we know there are members who have written their own scripts to convert csv to xml. The reason those can work is that the members know exactly how they organize their own metadata in csv format, and more importantly, they only use a single content type, and a very minimal subset of all possible metadata elements. The schema is too complicated for a ‘one size fits all approach’, but it can work if you’re only supply the bare minimum metadata.

But in general, help with creating xml is beyond the scope of what we can offer.

If there are other members on the forum who have had experience successfully writing a csv-to-xml conversion for their own use, or otherwise picking up xml skills, we’d love to hear their input!

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Thank you so much Shayn :heart:

Thats what I wanted to know, if it is necessary a bit more than just self effort haha You were very clear, as usual :wink:

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I do conversions/mappings/transformation of metadata professionally for a large number of companies.
We do already create XML for content registration.
If you are interested please check https://onixtools.de

Best
Herbert

Hi! I am new here and I need to re-register already existing DOIs. I have still their xml files, but I wonder if I can upload them directly or if I need to make changes in them.
I saw the examples you mention for conference papers, but I would be more interested by xml files for articles.
Could you please indicate me where I could get examples of such “simple” xml?
Thank you in advance!

Hello @pierre,

Welcome to the Community Forum.

So you can find examples of Crossref XML deposit files here: Example XML metadata - Crossref

You can also run your files through our parser to check the validity of the XML: crossref.org : metadata quality check

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Paul

Paul,

thanks for the link. What I miss there are samples of chapter registration XML.
i know that those are close to books but I can’t find anything which explains the differences or shows a chapter registration in itself.
Can you help?
Thanks
Herbert

Dear Paul,

Thank you very much for your reply, sure it will help!

I have a doubt that concerns keywords associated with scientific articles: I don’t see any mention of keywords in the xml files whereas for sure they should be somewhere as in science the research of articles is mainly on the basis of keywords. Do you have some idea?

Thank you for your help!

Regards,

Pierre

Just recognized that your link on the metadata quality check page is not working in
" To use other versions of the schema simply replace the 4.3.3 accordingly. Schema details are available in Crossref Help."

Hi Pierre,

Our metadata schema doesn’t allow for keywords, so there’s nowhere to include them in the metadata records you submit for your items.

You’re right that keywords are commonly used by other systems and search tools, but we have chosen not to collect or index them.

Best,
Shayn

Thanks for letting us know! We moved our support site to Documentation - Crossref awhile ago, but must have missed that one redirect.

Dear Shayn,

Thank you for your reply. I don’t understand, if keywords are absent from metadata, by which mechanism a research based on some keywords, can lead to find an article. Is it through words contained in the title?

Or does it exist somewhere a possibility to attach keywords to the article ?

Thank you for your hello, have a nice weekend,

Pierre