Ok, I give up. What is "CDIF"? (Or perhaps: what particular CDIF are you talking about?) If it's related in any way to www.cdif.org, that's a shame, since that web site doesn't seem to be findable... Any chance you could give us a pointer to (or brief sample/description of) the data you're talking about?

BTW, one reason I know that www.cdif.org used to exist is because of this page I found when googling "CDIF":

http://www.stylusstudio.com/xmldev/199806/post40430.html

If that's related to the CDIF you're talking about, maybe the CDIF-to-XML transform has been solved already, but good luck getting more info on that...