Well I'm reasonably knowledgable in matters of xml usage, etc. although my rebol knowledge is shit, given that I just use it for small scripting hacks here and there
if I use gavin's xml-object and a function to clean-up the output a bit: doc-tree: func[unpickedDom][pick third unpickedDom 1] I get >> xmldom: parse-xml read %t.xml XML Version: 1.0 == [document none [["tag" ["r" "here" "xmlns:stuff" "http://www.x.com";] ["^/stuff here ^/" ["stuff:p" ["hi" "test"] [["blah" n one [... >> t: doc-tree xmldom == ["tag" ["r" "here" "xmlns:stuff" "http://www.x.com";] ["^/stuff here ^/" ["stuff:p" ["hi" "test"] [["blah" none ["more"]]]] "^/" ... t is actually ["tag" ["r" "here" "xmlns:stuff" "http://www.x.com";] ["^/stuff here ^/" ["stuff:p" ["hi" "test"] [["blah" none ["more"]]]] "^/ " ["blah" none none] "^/"]] now in this case I don't think the namespaces are a problem, I don't understand xml-object well enough to know if it fails on namespace problems, but a namespace function could be built easily enough to go through the block getting all referenced namespaces and checking against those references whenever a usage is encountered. Of course it should be noted that the namespaces are placed in a block with the attributes but I don't think that is a major problem although there should of course be functions for returning just attributes without namespaces. What I find more irritating is the textnodes: I have 4 textnodes: "^/stuff here ^/" ["more"] "^/" and again "^/" now none is used in an empty tag, but "^/" is used for any empty textnode, and "^/ string^/" seems to be used for any textnode that has a sibling node, whereas textnodes that are only children are represented as a block with one string value. it would probably be better to just do that as another ["^/string value^/"] One of the things that should probably be considered for any functions for working with xml in rebol is optimizations for working with various types of xml, for example a document like structure such as we see above (for which I would say the rule is that a document structure has multiple textnodes, that an element which has as a direct child a textnode and an element is a document structure) as opposed to the more programmer friendly data type structure: <customers> <customer> <name><fname>John</fname> <lname>Simpson</lname> </name> .... </customer> </customers> > > Hi Robert, > > IMHO for one thing, it is like the "regular expression" (RE) topic which crops up now and then. > > People need an easy migration path. Anyone who has been convinced that xml is the end of the world in ascii data sharing, will be more easily lured if that is more completely supported. > > for myself, I have found xml is nice to support at least on import because many open source and on-line tools use XML as an export format. Things like namespaces, I have read, will obfuscate rebol's xml engine... maybe we are simply lacking in the more advanced features which are getting more common than they used to be... > > I really am not an xml genius, I just noticed that it is a trendy and competent ascii format, maybe if the rest of the world is using it... we should at least support it conveniently so that the phrase: > > "REBOL is the glue that binds things together" > > would hold more meaning with regards to other tools which already expect their data to be bound to other tools... > > maybe the fact that no one has done a complete xml port is that no guru has spent the better part of a month or two to do it. > > My guess is that many would benefit, but not that many are abilitated to actually do it... so they eventually turn to another solution.. > > in the near future, I will have to parse several MBs of textual xml data and I will see at that point how rebol handles it. until then, I'm just an interested reader... > > > cheers! :-) > > > -MAx > --- > "You can either be part of the problem or part of the solution, but in the end, being part of the problem is much more fun." > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Robert M. Münch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2004 12:47 PM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: [REBOL] Re: object2XML > > > > > > > > On Mon, 8 Mar 2004 18:24:11 -0600, iNetW3 > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Your right about Rebol and XML. I believe sooner or later > > > Carl will either add an xmlparser as a dll or functions to > > > the REBOL exe. The closer they get to an IE plug-in, the > > > more they will see Rebol really needs to deal with xhtml, > > > xml, html, etc. wether they like it or not or people at large will > > > not use it as a first class quick-fix scripting language. > > > > Can you give a use-case for what this is required? Once in a > > while this > > XML thing shows up over and over. If the demand is that high, > > why hasn't > > anyone started to write one? If I use Rebol I only see usage > > for XML for > > import or export. This can be done with the on-board tools > > quite good. Why > > should I use XML stuff? > > > > Think about why no full-blown XML parser exists for Rebol... > > this is a > > much more interesting question ;-) Robert > > -- > > To unsubscribe from this list, just send an email to > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the subject. > > > > > > -- > To unsubscribe from this list, just send an email to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the subject. > > -- To unsubscribe from this list, just send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the subject.
