[IATI] Repeated nested elements are flatted with no UID - meaning roundtripping is not possible

[stevieflow]

(original discussion in #1219)

For IATI XML to spreadsheet conversions, when we have a instance of multiple uses of the same sub element, these are pushed to their own worksheet. A consequence of this is that it is not then possible to roundtrip this data back to XML - as we are missing any data to relate the sub element to its parent.

@Bjwebb suggests:

I think creating our own IDs that get ignored or namespaced by unflatten is probably the way to deal with this.

The types of instances where this occur would be:

• a document-link with multiple document-category sub-elements
• a result with multiple indicator

I think multi lingual instances are also affected by this, which would describe instances where any text has multiple versions (which is legitimate) :

• a title with multiple narrative

[robredpath]

IATI CoVE - Add UIDs to nested elements during flattening

[stevieflow]

I created #1310 as that specifically looks at result/indicator data

However, if this logic were applied to all relevant elements, then great

In terms of the namespace , then this would be :

xmlns:cove="https://iati.cove.opendataservices.coop/"

in

<iati-activities generated-datetime="2020-09-16T14:57:49.654Z" version="2.03" xmlns:cove="https://iati.cove.opendataservices.coop/">

and then for each instance:

cove:uid

eg:

<result type="1" cove:uid:"1">

[stevieflow]

@rorads has been looking into this too - finding that inserting a column result/0/iati-identifier into a worksheet then "trick" (?) CoVE into consolidating different rows of results data into the same XML block (with the invalid element being inserted as the last element)

[stevieflow]

When looking at how we can nest on conversion to XML @Bjwebb (link to PR?) has enabled support of a cove:id extension. Sample file (looking at results): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZO1GgxzpRd0zBGV7iLd_saUIUYd_d7xyPySlv8zwdGQ/edit#gid=119826292

I guess we could look at inserting such an ID into XML, on demand?

Note - this does also alter the structure of spreadsheets, as activity-identifier is replaced by cove:id in various sheets. This will need some testing / thought

[Bjwebb]

Flatten results with IDs