Jonas Mellin wrote:
I would appreciate output in XML format from VBoxManage command since I am on a university and want to automate installation for my students to reduce their problems. It is, of course, perfectly possible to parse the output, BUT it would be simpled in XML. For a starter, the information commands could be added with an XML option. In the second step, it would be useful to enable packaging of error messages in XML as well.
Sorry, but I don't get the novelty of idea apparently - what you describe as "automate installation" sounds like a reinvention of the OVF export/import feature (which is an XML based file format btw.). Which is already supported by VBoxManage.
And for the other bits - VBoxManage is meant for simple configuration and management tasks. As an intermediate level between VBoxManage and fully custom code which uses the VirtualBox API you can use vboxshell.py. If you want to achieve something more complex and/or want to have better control over what's going on, there's the VirtualBox SDK. You can call the (XP)COM API from several languages (C/C++/python), and the webservice (WSDL) API from pretty much any noteworthy language.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against improvements, I'm just having a bit of difficulty to get the full understanding of your ideas out of the 6 lines outline. Note that VirtualBox is open source, so you could prototype/contribute your idea.
Klaus _______________________________________________ vbox-dev mailing list [email protected] http://vbox.innotek.de/mailman/listinfo/vbox-dev
