XML Structure Tab: Sort Children Column

Applies to: Marshalling data to XML only

Available: For mapped nodes only when the option Sort XML Output Nodes in Memory has been selected from the XML Structure tab toolbar. On the root (schema) node or an element node when at least one descendant has been mapped to a DB column, an expression, a constant, or added to the mapping file.

Possible values:

	Not currently set. You may check this node to group occurrences of this node in the XML output from the marshalling operation.
	Occurrences of this node will be grouped together in ascending order by node tag name in the results of the marshal operation.
	Occurrences of this node will be grouped together in descending order by node tag name in the results of the marshal operation.

Explanation

Summary | Examples

Allora offers three options for sorting XML output nodes:

Sort XML Output Nodes in Memory
Sort XML Output Records Using ORDER BY (default)
Optimize Combine Using ORDER BY

Choose which option using the Select Sort/ORDER BY Method icon in the XML Structure toolbar.

When you use this option, children of the node where the option is set are sorted in memory before a DOM tree is built for the XML output structure. Nodes are compared using database datatype (e.g. an integer type would use a number compare). Compare examines the node tag first, then the node value and then the attributes for the node. Results are ordered by tag unlike when using ORDER BY Node where results are ordered by vale. See also ORDER BY Node as an alternative.

Examples

Summary | Explanation

	Marshal with Combine Project	Overview of the project used in examples below.
1.	Marshal Without Combine	No settings have been made in the XML Structure tab
2.	Marshal with Combine	XML output combines all PurchaseOrder nodes that have a matching value for the OrderID node.
3.	Marshal with Combine and Group	XML output groups all matching elements (LineItem) together
4.	Marshal with Combine and Order By	XML output contains records retrieved from the database using an ORDER BY clause
5.	Marshal with Optimized Combine	XML output generated using the Optimized Combine feature in the XML Structure tab.