# Splitting Individual XMLs from Concatenated XML file

**URL:** <https://forum.cloverdx.com/t/splitting-individual-xmls-from-concatenated-xml-file/1380>\
**Category:** CloverDX Platform\
**Created:** [March 30, 2014, 12:00am UTC](https://forum.cloverdx.com/t/splitting-individual-xmls-from-concatenated-xml-file/1380 "2014-03-30T00:00:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![devmaha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bc79bd/32.png) [@devmaha](https://forum.cloverdx.com/u/devmaha)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 12:00am UTC](https://forum.cloverdx.com/t/splitting-individual-xmls-from-concatenated-xml-file/1380/1 "2014-03-30T00:00:00Z")

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I have a huge file which has multiple complete XMLs joined one after another. I want to work on these XMLs individually, so I am looking for a way to extract these. I tried ‘Universal Reader’ with delimiter ‘\<?’ and it worked fine except for the fact that each extracted XML then had the ‘\<?’ part missing (as it was marked as delimited). Can someone please suggest the right approach to do this task.  
I am using the latest CloverETL community edition.

**Input** :

\<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?\> 

XML1…

\<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?\> 

XML2…

\<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?\> 

XML3…

**Output** :

\<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?\> 

XML1…

and

\<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?\> 

XML2…

and

\<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?\> 

XML3…

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**Author:** ![imriskal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b38774/32.png) [@imriskal](https://forum.cloverdx.com/u/imriskal)\
**Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 12:25pm UTC](https://forum.cloverdx.com/t/splitting-individual-xmls-from-concatenated-xml-file/1380/2 "2014-03-31T12:25:09Z")

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Hi,

The easiest solution would probably be a Reformat component after your UniversalDataReader which would put “\<?” back. Something like:

$out.0.field1 = “\<?” + $in.0.field1;

I can not see any other way as your input file is not a valid XML file. If you knew the length of each XML part, you could use fixed-length metadata instead of the delimited one. Or if each XML part was on separate line, you could use \r\n as a delimiter.

Nevertheless, the Reformat workaround should help you if the two missing characters are the only flaw in your output.

Regards,

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**Author:** ![devmaha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bc79bd/32.png) [@devmaha](https://forum.cloverdx.com/u/devmaha)\
**Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 2:02pm UTC](https://forum.cloverdx.com/t/splitting-individual-xmls-from-concatenated-xml-file/1380/3 "2014-03-31T14:02:29Z")

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Aren’t you guys the best support one can dream of.  
Thank you so much.