# Power Query Resources for XML Parsing



## stvexcel (Mar 30, 2015)

Hello,

I am trying to bring in some Green Button (Green Button) XML files into Excel using Power Query, however I am having a heck of a time getting a usable table from the nested XML in the spec. 

Are there any good in-depth resources about parsing XML with Power Query? Can I leverage an XSLT file on import? I just can't manage to denormalize the files into a usable table. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Steve


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## scottsen (Mar 31, 2015)

It's a good question.  I don't know of one -- if you come across one, i would love to see it.  I tried playing w/ some sample data off Green Button, and ... I too got confused.  When do I click the "Table" link vs "expand columns", and how do I deal w/ nodes like <content> that have wildly different shape under them?

I sorta suspect you end up pulling it in multiple times and building multiple tables -- for different parts of the xml.  But even if you told me ... I only care about /feed/entry/content/ReadingType nodes... I would be futzing for a long time trying to get what I wanted.

Good luck, sorry I'm not super useful on this one.


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## stvexcel (Mar 31, 2015)

scottsen said:


> It's a good question.  I don't know of one -- if you come across one, i would love to see it.  I tried playing w/ some sample data off Green Button, and ... I too got confused.  When do I click the "Table" link vs "expand columns", and how do I deal w/ nodes like <content> that have wildly different shape under them?
> 
> I sorta suspect you end up pulling it in multiple times and building multiple tables -- for different parts of the xml.  But even if you told me ... I only care about /feed/entry/content/ReadingType nodes... I would be futzing for a long time trying to get what I wanted.
> 
> Good luck, sorry I'm not super useful on this one.



Yes, that is exactly my issue. The XML spec for Green Button is pretty big and the structure can vary tremendously.


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