RO CSVI

17 March 2018 | RO CSVI

This tutorial will explain how to:

• Analyze the XML file
• Setup an import template for the XML file
• How to import the XML file

Requirements for this tutorial are:

1. CSVI Pro 6.0+
2. This attached XML file

Analyzing the XML file

Open the attached XML file in an editor. There are a few things to see:

1. Root element
2. Node element
3. Record element
4. Item element

Root element

The root element is the <catalog> tag in the file. This contains all the node and record elements. CSVI does not use the root element so we can forget this one.

Node element

The node element is the <products> tag in the file. This contains all the record elements. CSVI does not use the node element either so we can forget this one also.

Record element

The record element is the <product> tag in the file. This contains all the details of the item in our case. The record element is very important for CSVI, this is how it identifies where to start reading your file. Therefore we need to put the record element in the XML options in the template as shown here. The element is written without the brackets.

Item element

The item elements contain all the item information. This is what we need for setting up the template fields but more about that later.

Setup an import template for the XML file

First create a new template by taking these steps:

1. Go to Components -> CSVI Pro -> Templates Tab
2. Provide a name for the template
3. Under Operations make the following selection:
   1. Import
   2. VirtueMart
   3. Product import
   4. Click on Save or Save & Close

1. On the File tab, set Use file for configuration to No
   
2. Now save the template by clicking on the Save or Save & Close button. This step is needed so we can add the fields to the template.
3. The template is now ready to be configured

Adding the fields

The most important part of the template are the fields, this is where CSVI is told what to do with the import fields. The order of the fields is not important as CSVI identifies fields based on their name. There is only one case where the order is important, that is with fields with the same name, this will be explained later. All field names are case-sensitive. Pay attention to this. We will take the following steps:

1. Identify the XML paths
2. Identify the CSVI fields
3. Add the fields to the template

Identify XML paths

A field name is created by CSVI based on the path in the XML file, the path always starts from the item element. First we will create the path names of the items in the attached XML file.

1. Element: <ID>
   Path: ID
2. Element: <NAME>
   Path: NAME
3. Element: <DESCRIPTION>
   Path: DESCRIPTION
4. Element: <PRICE>
   Path: PRICE
5. Element: <PRICE_BASE>
   Path: PRICE_BASE
6. Element: <PRICE_RES>
   Path: PRICE_RES
7. Element: <IMAGES><IMAGE1>
   Path: IMAGES/IMAGE1
8. Element: <IMAGES><IMAGE2>
   Path: IMAGES/IMAGE2
9. Element: <IMAGES><IMAGE3>
   Path: IMAGES/IMAGE3
10. Element: <IMAGES><IMAGE4>
    Path: IMAGES/IMAGE4
11. Element: <VIDEO1>
    Path: VIDEO1
12. Element: <VIDEO2>
    Path: VIDEO2
13. Element: <VIDEO3>
    Path: VIDEO3
14. Element: <FEATURES><FEATURE name>
    Path: FEATURES/FEATURE/NAME
    This path is used multiple times for the other features
15. Element: <FEATURES><FEATURE>
    Path: FEATURES/FEATURE
    This path is used multiple times for the other features
16. Element: <SIZE>
    Path: SIZE
17. Element: <GROUPPRODUCTS>
    Path: GROUPPRODUCTS
18. Element: <STATUS>
    Path: STATUS
19. Element: <CATEGORY>
    Path: CATEGORY
20. Element: <BARCODE>
    Path: BARCODE

Identify CSVI fields

Now that we have all the paths identified we need to identify the CSVI fields the paths belong to. A visual guide is available for the fields name to help you identify the fieldnames. Hereby the list of fields for the example XML:

1. Path: ID
   CSVI: product_sku
2. Path: NAME
   CSVI: product_name
3. Path: DESCRIPTION
   CSVI: product_desc
4. Path: PRICE
   CSVI: product_price
5. Path: PRICE_BASE
   CSVI: skip
   This field is skipped because there is no equivalent field available, this applies to all fields being skipped.
6. Path: PRICE_RES
   CSVI: skip
7. Path: IMAGE/IMAGE1
   CSVI: file_url
8. Path: IMAGE/IMAGE2
   CSVI: combine
   This field is going to be combined with the file_url field because there is only 1 field available to specify images.
9. Path: IMAGE/IMAGE3
   CSVI: combine
10. Path: IMAGE/IMAGE4
    CSVI: combine
11. Path: VIDEO1
    CSVI: skip
12. Path: VIDEO2
    CSVI: skip
13. Path: VIDEO3
    CSVI: skip
14. Path: FEATURES/FEATURE/NAME
    CSVI: custom_title
15. Path: FEATURES/FEATURE/NAME
    CSVI: combine
16. Path: FEATURES/FEATURE/NAME
    CSVI: combine
17. Path: FEATURES/FEATURE
    CSVI: custom_value
18. Path: FEATURES/FEATURE
    CSVI: combine
19. Path: FEATURES/FEATURE
    CSVI: combine
20. Path: SIZE
    CSVI: skip
21. Path: GROUPPRODUCTS
    CSVI: skip
22. Path: STATUS
    CSVI: published
23. Path: CATEGORY
    CSVI: category_path
24. Path: BARCODE
    CSVI: skip

Add the fields

Now that we have identified the paths and fields, we are ready to add all the fields to the template. We do this by following this procedure:

1. Click on the Template Fields tab to open the fields section
2. From the Field name dropdown select the CSVI field
3. In the Your field name field type the XML path. Do not forget that the file field name is case-sensitive.
4. Click on the Save or Save & Close
5. Repeat these steps for all fields

Combine fields

The next step is to configure the combine fields to make sure all the fields get combined.

As mentioned earlier, we are going to combine the image fields because there is only 1 field for an image available. To combine the images we need to edit the field name, this is done by clicking on the field name. The steps are:

1. Go to Rules
2. Click on New
3. An edit screen opens as seen on the screenshot above
4. Enter a name for the rule that is easy to recognize
5. Set the Action to import as we are using this rule for an import
6. Choose the Plugin named CSVI Field combine
7. Click on Load Plugin
8. Click on Save to store the settings and after that we can fill in our fields
9. Next we need to define the source fields. These are the fields that we want to combine. We have 4 images in total, the first one is linked to the file_url field and the other 3 need to be combined with the first one. We do this by specifying all the fields we want to combine. Since this is an XML file, we need to use the XML path instead of the CSVI name. So our list will look like this file_url,IMAGE/IMAGE1,IMAGE/IMAGE2,IMAGE/IMAGE3,IMAGE/IMAGE4.
10. In the Target field we specify where the combined value is stored. In our case this is the file_url field.
11. Next in the Combine character we need to set which character we want to use to combine the fields. Multiple images are always separated by a pipe-symbol |, so we fill in the pipe-symbol.
12. Click on Submit to save the changes
13. Do the same for the custom_title and custom_value fields.
14. The fields are now all added and set up

 How to import the XML file

 The last step is to import the XML file.

1. Click on Import tab
2. Select the template created for XML Import
3. Click on Select file from top right corner

1. Click on Choose File (text may vary depending on the browser used)
2. Select the file on your computer
3. Click on Preview in the top left corner
4. CSVI will show the preview of content of the file. Now click on Start Import to start the import of XML file

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A blank screen is almost always caused by a fatal error given by PHP. The reason the error is not shown is because on most production systems the setting display_errors is set to off. To verify if this is the case check the PHP settings on your system.

When does this happen?

• During installation of CSVI
• When opening CSVI
• During import
• During export

Where to look?

The exact error is to be found in the server error log. This must be found first before any other action can be taken. Without the error, it is almost impossible to know where to look.

Go to the Global Configuration and on the Server tab set the Error reporting to Maximum, now save the configuration. Now errors will be shown on the page where the problem is.

If you still don't see errors you there is an alternative way. Add the following code at the end of the configuration.php file:

ini_set( 'display_errors', true );
error_reporting( E_ALL );

This turns on all error reporting and set to display the errors.

The cause

The fatal error is usually one of these:

• Out of memory
  The file you are trying to upload is using more memory than your system has available
• Maximum execution time exceeded
  The file you are trying to import takes too long to process
• File not found
  The program tried to include a file that does not exist
• Function does not exist
  A function is called that does not exist, for example stripos().
• Undefined
  A piece of code is called that does not exist

The solution

Out of memory

The out of memory has several possible solutions:

1. Make the import file smaller or limit export setings
2. Increase the memory limit in the template
   This may not always work as not all systems allow CSVI VirtueMart to change these settings.
3. Increase the memory limit in PHP settings
   How to change these settings depends on the system. Some hosts do not allow changes, others use a local php.ini and others user .htaccess. Check with your hosting provider on how to change this value. The PHP value to change is memory_limit.

Maximum execution time exceeded

The maximum execution time exceeded has several possible solutions:

1. Make the import file smaller or limit the export setings
2. Increase the maximum execution time in the template
   This may not always work as not all systems allow CSVI to change these settings.
3. Increase the execution time in PHP settings
   How to change these settings depends on the system. Some hosts do not allow changes, others use a local php.ini and others user .htaccess. Check with your hosting provider on how to change this value. The PHP value to change is max_execution_time.
4. Do a manual installation of CSVI

File not found

Important is to find out what file is not found. This can be found in the logfile or if errors are displayed, the filename will show on screen. The file not found has several possible solutions:

1. Check if the installation of CSVI went fine
2. Check if the file exists or not

Function does not exist

The reason here is that an older PHP version is used. Check if your system is running PHP5.

Undefined

Report the exact error as found in the server error log on the forum.

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