That's what I generally do when I want to export to XML for the purpose of quick edits.
Examples of when this was useful to me was as Andrew pointed out when the release version of the ARS like 7.6.3 and the earliest release of 7.6.4 was so full of bugs that even simple workflow where menus cross referenced fields from 2 forms did not work, I was able to edit the workflow using XML within a minute and import it into the system. If I were to attempt to do that on a DEF file it would have taken me at least 10 minutes longer on each than I could on XML. Like Andrew, the disk space the file takes does not bother me that much as most of the time when I do an XML output of the def, its for about 5 to 10 objects at most.. It's usually still under an MB most of the time. Joe _____ From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Andrew Hicox Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 3:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Export definitions options ==> Bug or feature?? ** >> How big will an XML-export of ITSM get? Huge. Around 800mb or so. But I wouldn't recommend exporting it all to the same file :-) For those purposes, I just use a separate script that queries all the objects from the server and exports them to individual files. Once you build a "workflow cache" like this, it's a seriously handy resource. Especially in conjunction with grep :-) -Andy On Aug 12, 2015 1:50 PM, "Misi Mladoniczky" <[email protected]> wrote: Hi Andrew, You are right, there are uses for the XML format. I have written perl parsers for the DEF format instead, as the XML format gave files that was too big. I am talking about complete exports of a whole system. How big will an XML-export of ITSM get? Best Regards - Misi, RRR AB, http://www.rrr.se (ARSList MVP 2011) Ask the Remedy Licensing Experts (Best R.O.I. Award at WWRUG10/11/12/13): * RRR|License - Not enough Remedy licenses? Save money by optimizing. * RRR|Log - Performance issues or elusive bugs? Analyze your Remedy logs. Find these products, and many free tools and utilities, at http://rrr.se. >>> Why use XML definition files? >>> It just adds a tremendous amount of tags >>> resulting in enormous files... > > Because it's awesome, that's why! > I can extract (nearly all) the workflow and forms from an entire server and > I can parse them with xpath. > > That is a HUGE capability. I've found and fixed some of the gnarliest bugs > of my carreer doing just that. > > I don't give a hoot about the file size (within reason). I DO care about > being able to quickly write scripts to descend mountains of workflow and > find exactly what I need, and even modify it without ever needing to write > a custom parser. > > For instance ... say you've got a few hundred filters calling webservice > endpoint A and that needs to be endpoint B now ... it's a snap with xml > export and a perl script. > > -Andy > DEF is great for purely importing and exporting - XML is better for editing > content manually. Personally I use XML on occasions I need to edit the > definitions and DEF only if I intend to use it as is for import later > without having to edit anything. > > Cheers > > Joe > > -----Original Message----- > From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Misi Mladoniczky > Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 1:33 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Export definitions options ==> Bug or feature?? > > Hi, > > Updating XML is much more complicated. On DEF files you can just append > additional objects at the end. > > To update XML in a correct way you should parse and validate the complete > XML-file before you add the extra content and save it to disc again. This > would be a client exercise, and it would use a lot of memory and process > power. I think that the creation of the XML is done on the server today > which > makes it even more complex to do. > > Why use XML definition files? It just adds a tremendous amount of tags > resulting in enormous files... > > Best Regards - Misi, RRR AB, http://www.rrr.se (ARSList MVP 2011) > > Ask the Remedy Licensing Experts (Best R.O.I. Award at WWRUG10/11/12/13): > * RRR|License - Not enough Remedy licenses? Save money by optimizing. > * RRR|Log - Performance issues or elusive bugs? Analyze your Remedy logs. > Find these products, and many free tools and utilities, at http://rrr.se. > >> I was thinking the same thing. The increased challenge of exporting to xml >> vs how many people export to xml probably wasn't worth the effort. >> >> On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 9:16 AM, LJ LongWing <[email protected]> > wrote: >> >>> ** >>> Joe, >>> Consider it a feature :).... >>> >>> First line of an XML def export is >>> >>> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><root> >>> >>> If appending more to the end, you can't add another <?xml in the middle >>> because you feel like it, so you can't just 'append' the same way to an > XML >>> as you do to a def....to append to an XML you would need to not put the >>> same first line in what you are appending, and you would need to edit the >>> original file and pull off the last line of '</root>'...whereas when > doing >>> an append for regular def, you can just add things to the end... >>> >>> So....while none of this is saying that it couldn't be overcome and do >>> appends on XML....it's not as straight forward and easy as def...so I > guess >>> they chose to design it this way, which makes it a feature :) >>> >>> On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 10:07 AM Joe D'Souza <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> ** >>>> >>>> If a feature I wonder what the benefit of it might be as I do not see >>>> one. Which makes me think it's a bug. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> If you select workflow objects to export, and select the export type as >>>> .DEF, all is good. You can export your objects & create the export file > and >>>> then if you missed exporting some just select those, export again, and > you >>>> get Append and Overwrite as two modes in which you can export so you can >>>> Append to your existing file. HOWEVER, if you choose to export your >>>> definitions as an XML, and later choose to export some more, you do not > get >>>> an Append option. So your only option is to select all the objects you > want >>>> to including what you missed, and then Overwrite. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Is this a bug? Or "claimed" as a feature? If a feature, what is the >>>> benefit of this design? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I noticed this on 8.1.2 but something tells me it might have been a >>>> pre-existing bug or feature since the inception of export formats as > .xml. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Cheers >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Joe >>>> _ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are" and have been for 20 years_ >>> >>> _ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are" and have been for 20 years_ >>> >> >> > ____________________________________________________________________________ > ___ >> UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org >> "Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years" >> > > ____________________________________________________________________________ > ___ > UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org > "Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years" > > ____________________________________________________________________________ ___ > UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org > "Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years" > > ____________________________________________________________________________ ___ > UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org > "Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years" > ____________________________________________________________________________ ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org "Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years" _ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are" and have been for 20 years_ _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org "Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years"
