Create a template diagram (mailmerge-ish)?

[Dan Bolser <dmb mrc-dunn cam ac uk>]

Hi, 

I searched the archives for 'template' but didn't find exactly what I was
looking for.

My idea is to create a basic diagram (a template) with several 'fields' or
variables. Then I need some way to read something like a tab delimited
file and produce one diagram from each 'record' in that file.

The value for each field would be taken from the file and used to
generate a diagram from the template.

Here is a simple example of what I have in mind

+-----+                 +-----+
| $f1 |  <--- $f2 --->  | $f3 |
+-----+                 +-----+

Where $f1 is the text inside the first box, $f2 is the text on an arrow
and $f3 is the text inside the second box. Then using a file
something like...

f1      f2      f3
A       99      B
C       2       D
DAN     LIKES   DIA

I would create 3 diagrams mail merge style.

I guess this is easy for someone who knows what they are doing with XML,
but I am not that person.

Can someone advise?

It would be really great to include a little tool with dia to help do this
kind of 'templating', as their are lots of little things that you could
add to such a system if it were a sub-project rather than a one off hack.

I would find this really useful because I have about 150 little schematics
to draw, and while I would love to use dia I am using GD. (admitedly if I
knew XML better I could generate the dia file directly, but I don't know
how.)

Any suggestions appreciated,
Dan.