Question

I need to download UN Blacklist XML file periodically. Is there any way to automate this using sql ONLY?

Answer 1

The following function will return XML as a string:

CREATE FUNCTION "DBA"."UNBlacklist"() returns long varchar url 'http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/consolidatedlist.xml' type 'HTTP:GET' ;

To extract stuff from it, use select ... from OpenXML().

Answer 2

Just as a quick start:

You should be able to download any web document with SA's web client procedures/functions.

I haven't done that myself so I can't give exact advice but you may have a look at the topics "SQL Anywhere web services" and "Web service clients", e.g. the following topic.

Some ideas:

• You could code the URI in a web client function
• The function could return the according XML document
• Or you could use SA's XML support to extract the needed information from the document directly
• Calling the web client function regularly could be done be an event or the like.

Just my thoughts