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Re: so many options no idea where to begin

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: so many options no idea where to begin
• From: Rick Jones <rick_jones2@h...>
• Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 10:40:10 -0700
• Organization: the Unofficial HP
• References: <3D472E5B.626CA56B@h...> <1028079525.19565.35.camel@marajen>
• Reply-to: raj@c...
• Sender: raj@t...

 
> > (I never went as far as XDR, not sure why - I guess that doesn't
> > matter now though...)
> 
> An unconscious instinct for self-preservation, perhaps?

probably, it has been said that knuth and turing look after fools and
small programmers. altough it was probably an immune response triggered
by XDR's source domain versus that of my employer :)

> Could I suggest that you take a look at the construction of Jabber?
> There's an excellent (O'Reilly zoo) book on the subject.  In
> particular, the way that Jabber associates a namespace with a module is
> unique in my experience, but might meet your needs quite nicely.  It's
> a very different take on the use of namespaces (and it has to be said
> that the distributed code doesn't do a terribly spec-compliant job on
> namespaces;
> change the prefix of the root element to anything other than "stream"
> and it barfs all over your shoes).  I won't completely recommend it,
> but I think that you ought to look at it, as an inspirational text ....
> 
> Jabber config files address the same problem: independently written
> modules, which may even operate on different machines, but for which
> configuration should be centralized.

OK, time to wade through the XML section at the bookstore again. Wish
that Computer Literacy hand't been assimlated.

> > <!-- I would like to be able to include a file of just test and server
> > elements without a containing <netperf></netperf> -->
> >
> > <xi:include href="sub.xml" />
> 
> Whether inclusion works as planned may depend upon the processor used
> to parse the instance.  Check on what's available; you might find (for
> instance) that the tools available in Python supply your needs, and
> that the language is available on all platforms likely to use netperf.

It could simpy be that I don't understand what include is supposed to
do. I'm thinking of it with a C programming mind set - include a
fraction of a program/definitions, but not something that is a complete
program in and of itself. I'm getting the impression that is not quite
what XInclude is about - it seems to be about including an entire
document (its root and all) as a child element (correct term?) of
another document.

> > having become totally confused by C++ several times, and wanting more
> > low-level control over sockets than I understand is available in
> > Java, and wanting to use things like libcurl for the FTP and HTTP i
> > would like to stick with C (perhaps that shows my age :) i have come
> > across libxml from the gnome folks - haven't gone quite as far as
> > gdome2 yet though, peeked only a little at SOAP and am not sure I
> > want to go that far just yet.
> 
> Daniel's a regular on this list, so perhaps he'll say something about
> how well libxml2 suits your purposes.

He is the one who redirected me here from the xml list :)

> > using XML as the output format of the benchmark appears appealing -
> > the stuff I wrote to parse netperf2 output for the netperf database
> > was, well, quaint.
> 
> Take a quick look at ant, especially its optional junit task.  No, I'm
> not suggesting a unit testing framework, but the junit task generates

That's OK, many folks have (ab)used netperf as a testing tool rather
than a benchmark :)

> XML output, which is then transformed via stylesheet into a really
> lovely tree.  Moreover, the XML is still there, for further
> transformation (as accumulation of data, or run comparisons ... just
> another stylesheet).
> 
> > *) i'm not sure when one "should" use attributes versus a nested
> >    element
> 
> Controversial.  Using DTD-defined XML, the only things that *could*
> have types were attributes.  Not true for XSDL-defined, or even
> RNG-defined.

XSDL - XML Schemas? 

> > *) my config files may become quite large - XInclude sounds
> >    interesting, but a fully formed file XIncluded (at least via
> >    libxml) has the whole file as a sub-element when what I really
> >    want (I think anyway) is the elements in the file being included
> >    be at the same depth as the include itself (ie up one level)
> 
> XLink replace.  Or just live with inclusion semantics.

OK.

> > *) since I am interested in things like doubles and 64-bit integers
> >    and such i think i want to use XML schemas (?) but those seem to
> >    be still rather new and not part of libxml - are they part of any
> >    other C-based offering.
> 
> May I point out that XML is text?  

Sure :)

> So it really doesn't matter.  You
> can define it, in your application, as <element type="long-long"> and
> nobody else has to care.  Type definition is a seriously painful topic,
> because XML's text representation doesn't really correspond to the
> binary representation of a double or float, even using IEEE 754. 
> You're *going* to convert.  If you were sending this information around
> to other W3C XML Schema-aware applications, then you'd have a real need
> to use the types defined by W3C XML Schema.  Since you're using the
> types where they need to turn into types (XSLT isn't going to perform
> special actions based on types, not this year, anyway), you''ve no
> requirement to conform to the truly limping and incomprehensible
> collection of type collections defined in XSDL.  Do it in the
> application.

I guess I was hping for some additional checking in the parser rather
than in the code I wrote myself. Laziness on my part.

It sounds then like I should do a basic DTD then if I want some level of
validation.

> > *) when someone adds a new test suite, I'd like them to be able to
> > include a validator (schema?)  that will be [expletive deleted]-in to the main
> > config file. however, i'm concerned about what I read about
> > namespaces (which I think I may need/want to avoid name conflicts)
> > and validation, and it seems that the validators have to be all
> > specified at the top of a document?
> 
> So define each test as a separate document.  Validate independently.
> Use XLink/XInclude to stitch together; use document() to produce
> aggregated reports via XSLT.

I suppose each discrete test suite in an aggregation of tests could be a
separate config docuement, though I would have "extra" server's defined.
Probably not a big deal though, and it is unlikely that I'll have that
many cases of multiple test quites active in the same benchmark session.

> > i'm sure that my questions show just how little I really understand
> > about all this, so please be gentle :)
> 
> Heh.  No, you ask really *nice* questions.  Your questions can be
> answered.  Given the way that the questions are phrased, I can feel
> confident that an answer that isn't an answer, just a pointer at
> resources for you to find the answer, is still potentially useful. 
> "I'm new, could someone explain XML?" is a hard one ....

One must always tread lightly when entering an unfamiliar forrest :)

rick jones
-- 
Wisdom Teeth are impacted, people are affected by the effects of events.
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... :)
feel free to post, OR email to raj in cup.hp.com  but NOT BOTH...

• Follow-Ups:
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    • From: Rick Jones <rick_jones2@h...>
  • Re: so many options no idea where to begin
    • From: Amelia A Lewis <amyzing@t...>

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