Using infopath to edit an external xml file.

[TerryR]

I am trying to use infopath to create a rich form editor, to edit, and save
external xml files. I might have form that I want to use to edit several
different xml files, for example, say a status report, where I want to load
the xml file into the Infopath form, edit, and save the updates separately
from the actual infopath form.

Try as I might I haven't figured out a way to load the external xml document
into
infopath's DOM. The basic functionality in infopath exists to support
webservices, and database queries, but this external data scenario is not
supported for normal xml files. Am I over looking something? This seems like
such a common scenario.

 

[Brian Teutsch [MSFT]]

The XML file must have a Processing Instruction at the top to associate it
with an XSN file for editing the XML document. Take a look at the XML
documents InfoPath produces and it should be fairly obvious.

You can also start from those XML documents, even without a PI, to design
the XSN (Form Template) used to edit the XML files later on.

Brian