On 6/10/06, Ralf Gerlich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Writing a parser is always work we rather wouldn't be doing as we'd > rather devote ourselves to working with the data than to reading or > writing it from or to file.
yes. using XML, any number of parsers are available, AND they can do well formedness checks for you, AND XML is inherently more "self documenting" than record/delimeter based formats. > > The reason why parsing apt.dat is a PITA is the lots of data to be > parsed and interpreted for runways and taxiways (lighting, material, > stopways, etc.). This data doesn't get less with XML and it certainly > won't get less with the new format. well, for me, it had nothing to do with the volume. it had to do with having to write lots of brittle code to parse the data. i mean seriously, a format that relies on having to understand the first "field" for any given record, as defining its "type" ... and having to do stuff like skip the "first N lines" ... and having an "end of file" record ? and to be advocating for expanding it ... in 2006 ? i was trying to advocate for XML, as i could have then brought XSLT and XPath tools to the table, in addition to having the parsing done for free, which would have made the data easier to use. i was also trying to point out that, ime, XML formats are much easier to mutate and keep compatible over the longer term, and XSLT is a great way for "migrating" older formats to newer formats. ultimately though, it looks like the decision will be more of the same ... > Cheers, > Ralf Tony -- X-SA user ? 0.5.1 is out ! XData 0.1 for X-SA is out ! http://x-plane.dsrts.com _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
